


Unbreak Me

by Moonjin_MX



Category: GOT7
Genre: Alternate Universe - Magic, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Amnesia, Angst, Fantasy, M/M, Magic, Magic-Users, Slow Burn, Vampires, Violence, Witchcraft, Witches
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-13
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2018-12-14 22:45:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11793051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moonjin_MX/pseuds/Moonjin_MX
Summary: After becoming a monster, Mark Tuan erases all memory of himself from everyone he’s ever known and moves halfway across the world to start a new life.  But somehow, even without his memories, Jackson still finds him again.





	1. Prologue: A Human Life Ends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Stay where you are, and I will come for you  
> I will comfort you  
> Until the stars fall around us
> 
> For every dream that you lost, every tear that it cost  
> I will unbreak you  
> All the pain that you feel, let this moment be real  
> I will unbreak you  
> We can make it alright, you and me here tonight  
> I will unbreak you"  
> \--Unbreak You, Ryan Star
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone that reads my story! This is probably going to be pretty long with a slow build-up, so prepare yourselves for a roller coaster. Also posted on Asianfanfics under the same username/same title.

The shortcut home was a dirt path through an overgrown stretch of the woods, lined with white oak benches that had warped over the years.  The path connected the back of the local high school to Mark’s subdivision, and from there he only had to cross the street to reach his house.  It turned a half hour walk into ten minutes, but he barely ever used it because it made him nervous.  His best friend Jackson never failed to make fun of him for taking the long route—an extra twenty minutes because of a senseless fear, as he liked to put it—but in Mark’s opinion, twenty minutes was a fair exchange for his peace of mind.  Nothing good ever happened in the woods.  He was probably just being paranoid, but at least he wasn’t going to end up dead.

But today Mark had a good reason to get home early.  Jackson had spent the past nine months abroad in South Korea so that he could train at a prestigious dance studio.  Today was his first day back in the States.  It was the longest that the pair had ever been apart, and Mark couldn’t wait to see him.  He wanted to throw himself into Jackson’s arms and kiss him until he couldn’t breathe.  Not that he would, of course.  Not that he _could._  It could very easily erase their ten years of friendship in just a couple of seconds.  And even if it didn’t, Mark couldn’t handle the rejection—not from Jackson.

But the thoughts were still there, of course.  All Mark could do was keep holding those feelings in.  He wondered how long it would take before he destroyed himself in the process.  Even now he was rushing to Jackson’s side just like always, dooming himself even further.

Mark’s steps froze and he nervously ran a hand through his cherry red hair.  He was at the edge of the woods.  He tried to stifle his fear, but his limbs were shaking and goosebumps prickled his arms.  Mark knew that there was no reason to be scared, yet he kept hesitating.  Images of ax murderers and blood-soaked body parts fluttered through his mind.

Mark jumped at the buzz from his pocket.  His cheeks burned bright red as he fished out the offending device, silently cursing his own cowardice.  There was a text message from Jackson on his lock screen:

> Just got to your house.  Your mom let me in.  I can’t wait to see you.  Hurry home ^^

The spell was broken.  Mark took a deep breath as the toe of an off-white Nike crossed the line onto the wooded pathway.  Nothing tried to attack him.  So far, so good.  The cedar trees towered above him, snuffing out the harsh June sun.  Mark sighed as his steps grew quicker.  He was always running after Jackson; over and over he would just keep on running until one day he was too exhausted to take another step—and at that point, he would probably crawl.

His hesitant steps became a jog, and the jog turned into an actual run.  The quicker he got to the end, the less likely he was to be murdered.  He was almost all the way through the path when he heard a sharp scream of pain.

Mark faltered.  It wasn’t worth the danger.  And yet his feet were already dragging him from the dirt and into the dense trees until he was hovering just at the edge of a grassy clearing.  He cursed at his instincts to protect other people above himself, no matter how afraid he may be—which due to his paranoia was usually pretty damn afraid.  A coward with a good heart, that’s all Mark was.

The scene that was laid out before him wasn’t an easy one to process.  There were five men in the clearing, and one of them was dead.  The corpse lay on its stomach, head turned at an awkward angle, eyes glassy and wide.  His throat was torn open and still dripping thick red liquid from the mangled flesh.  His skin was already turning grey, and his lips were parted as though he’d been shocked to meet his end.

Mark’s skin was crawling; he wanted to tear it off his body.  He wanted to scream.  But he didn’t have control over himself anymore, couldn’t move or speak or even pull his eyes away from what was in front of him.  White spots filled his vision and he swayed, only moments from falling over and joining the dead body on the ground, though he probably wouldn’t have even noticed if he did fall.  His brain was too busy trying to convince himself that what he was seeing wasn’t actually happening.  His knees buckled and somewhere at the back of his consciousness he felt himself sinking.

A pair of strong arms had him in a headlock before he even made it to the ground, and with a sudden whoosh he was standing in the middle of the clearing.  He had an unobstructed view of the three men in front of him, who were now close enough to reach out and touch him.  One was maybe in his thirties with a blonde buzz cut and an eyepatch over his left eye.  He was digging a thick piece of whittled wood deeply into the gut of the second man, who couldn’t have been much older than twenty.  A trickle of blood dripped from the second boy’s lips as he gasped in pain.  Sweat made his shiny silver hair stick to his forehead and his trembling hands tried desperately to force the weapon from his body as Eyepatch Guy dug it deeper.  The third man with long, dark hair stood slightly to the side with a crossbow pointed right at Mark.

“Kill Jaebum and this human dies too,” growled the voice from behind Mark.  The guy who’d grabbed him still had him in a headlock so tight that he couldn’t even fidget.  Mark’s captor seemed more concerned with the safety of Jaebum, the injured boy with the silver hair, than he was his own safety.  Even if he didn’t kill Mark himself, he was likely to get him killed anyways with his own recklessness—and probably get _himself_ killed as well.

Then it dawned on Mark what the guy had said.   _Human?_  What the hell was wrong with these people?  Were they on drugs?

“You think I care about one measly human?” spat Eyepatch Guy.  “Killing you beasts will save much more than just one.”  He gave a pointed look at the guy holding the crossbow, who seemed to understand what he was trying to say.

“But Hiram, the hu-” Crossbow Guy tried to protest.

“That’s an order, Kyle,” Eyepatch Guy growled.

“Jinyoung, please, j-just run and save y-yourself,” Jaebum stuttered, gasping in pain as he spoke.

Everything that came next seemed to happen within the blink of an eye, or maybe Mark was just too out of it to properly focus on what was happening.

Kyle shot his crossbow bolt directly at Mark in order to get to Jinyoung behind him.  The wooden bolt struck Mark directly in the chest and pierced through the back of him, but Jinyoung had already darted out from behind him at a speed that seemed too fast to be possible.  Kyle struggled to reload another stake but his shaking hands weren’t cooperating, so instead he grabbed the stake tightly in his hand and ditched the crossbow in the grass.  Jinyoung stepped out to the side at the last second and snatched Kyle’s arm, twisting it painfully as he forced Kyle’s own stake into his throat.  Deep crimson flooded down his body as Jinyoung pushed the wood straight through his neck and out the other side.  With a pained gurgle, Kyle spat up blood and took a final shuddering breath.  Jinyoung unceremoniously shoved the body to the ground where it collapsed in a bloody heap.

All of that happened as Hiram wrenched his own wooden stake from Jaebum’s chest with a sickening squelch and this time aimed it directly at the silver-haired boy’s heart.  But just before he could make the kill, Hiram heard the sound of his companion falling.  His eyes momentarily darted to his friend’s corpse and a strangled cry escaped from his lips.  His arm faltered for just a moment—that moment was Jaebum’s window of opportunity.  He was too weak and sluggish from his injuries to escape, but he was at least able to grab hold of the stake while Hiram was distracted and force it slightly to the left of his heart.

Jaebum screamed out in pain as the wood cut deep into his skin, and the stake was almost immediately pulled out again as Hiram attempted to hit the heart on his third stab.  But he never got the chance.  Jinyoung was right behind him, and Hiram’s one eye widened in horror as the dark-haired boy sunk sharp nails deep into his arm and tore the limb from his body.  Hiram let out an agonizing yell as his own arm was thrown across the clearing in a spray of red, the wooden stake still clutched in the fingers.  With a pained whimper, he turned around and ran from the clearing, clutching at the stump that ended just below his shoulder in a desperate attempt stop himself from bleeding out.  

Jinyoung could easily have finished him off, but he barely even gave Hiram a glance as he fled because all of his attention was now on his injured friend.  Or maybe they were more than friends because Jinyoung softly cupped Jaebum’s cheek in his hand and placed a light kiss on his lips.

“How are you feeling?” Jinyoung asked cautiously when he pulled away, eyeing the two gaping wounds in Jaebum’s chest.

“I’ll be fine once I eat,” the other responded, kneeling down shakily in the grass beside Mark and the two corpses.

It was then that Mark realized he’d been watching the events play out from below; he hadn’t even noticed when he hit the ground.  He couldn’t remember if he’d screamed or not when he was hit, and the searing pain of being stabbed with sharp wood had seemed so distant, like he was only watching it happen to himself from the outside rather than actually feeling it.  Even now he still felt detached from himself, and the pain was dull and hidden somewhere in a much deeper level of his conscious.

Jaebum’s face drew close to one of the bodies, the one that used to be Kyle, but Mark’s eyes were too blurry and unfocused to clearly see what was happening.  When Jaebum finally came over to Mark’s side, he had blood dripping from his lips and the only signs of his wounds were the holes in his navy blue shirt—the skin underneath was smooth and unblemished.  Mark let out a weak laugh despite the situation, because that was definitely not possible which meant now he must be hallucinating.

“Hey, this human is still alive,” Jaebum said with a gasp, watching the slow rise and fall of Mark’s chest.  To Mark, it sounded like the voice was traveling through water to reach him.

Jinyoung kneeled down to get a closer look, balancing gracefully on the balls of his feet.  His eyes went wide with wonder. “No way!  What do we do with him?  Call the cops?  Drop him off at a hospital?”

Jaebum shook his head sadly.  “He’d die before he got help.  He’s almost dead already.”

Mark wanted to ask if he was really dying, but he couldn’t make his mouth work.  He couldn’t make anything work, could barely even wiggle his fingers.  All he could manage to do was close his eyes, and that was only because they felt too impossibly heavy to keep open any longer.  He supposed that should have been enough to answer his question.

“You think we should just… leave him?” Jinyoung asked warily.  Mark wished he could protest that idea, but he couldn’t even let out a squeak or a groan.  Apparently Jaebum didn’t like that answer either though because there was a sound like someone had been slapped.

“You brought him into this,” he scolded, “and you just want to leave him?”

The voices seemed so much louder with his eyes closed.  White and purple spots swam behind Mark's eyelids.

“Well, what do you suggest I do?  I can’t just- oh.”  Jinyoung seemed to have come to some sort of realization.  He sighed, but it didn’t seem like he was annoyed, more like he was trying to prepare himself for something difficult.

Mark’s senses were dimming, but he could tell that Jinyoung was leaning closer to him than before.  Then suddenly he pulled back again, and Jaebum’s voice was much closer like he too was now kneeling on the ground.  Their conversation came to him from behind layers of fog.

“You don’t have to do that if you don’t want to,” Jaebum assured.  “It’s a huge responsibility for both of us, and we have no idea what he’ll be like either.  Just because we aren't going to leave him, doesn't mean we have to go that far if you don't want to.  We could just stay here with him and keep him company until he-”  He cut himself off before he could finish the sentence.

“Hey, kid,” Jinyoung said gently, addressing Mark this time.  “I have a question for you, and it’s really important.  What do you think is worse: dying, or living as a monster?”

Mark was too far gone to figure out what was being asked let alone reply.  All he heard was a string of random sounds that at one point probably would’ve meant something to him.  His body wasn’t his anymore.  It was the end.  He wished that he could say he was unafraid, but honestly he was more scared than he'd ever been.  At the back of his jumbled mind, his last wish was that he could see Jackson and his parents one more time.  He wished that he could say goodbye.

“Can you hear me?” Jinyoung spoke up again.  “I need your answer.”  There was a long pause.  “Fuck.  I guess I’ll take silence as a yes.  If not, I guess I’ll kill you when you wake up.”

“It might not work, you know,” Jaebum admitted.  “He’s pretty much dead by now.”

“Well, fingers crossed.”

Something cold and fleshy was pressed against Mark’s lips, and a thick metallic liquid slipped down his throat as his consciousness faded to nothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you at the next update! Honestly I'm not the best about updating quickly, especially with classes and work and all that, but I'll do my best! 
> 
> Until then, if you ever want to get ahold of me you can find me on social media:  
> Instagram: @vampycat.cos  
> Twitter: @darling_hyunjin


	2. Prologue: A New Life Begins

It was a strange experience to wake up after dying, head pounding, hunger gnawing painfully at his stomach, and wearing a shirt that was definitely not his.

He was lying face up on a black suede couch, a fluffy white bed pillow tucked behind his head.  The room was all monochrome with white walls, white plush carpeting, and black furniture.  It appeared to be a small living room with not much else except a flat screen TV, a suede arm chair that matched the couch Mark was laying on, a wooden end table with a small lamp, and a long glass table in front of him that Mark could've propped his feet on if he’d had the energy.

Mark carefully pushed himself to a sitting position with shaky noodle arms and immediately groaned at the surge of pain.  He closed his burning eyes and rubbed at his eyelids with the pads of his fingers as footsteps approached from another room.

“Hey, Jaebum, how long should we keep the body before we just give up and trash—holy  _SHIT_.”

Mark slowly turned his throbbing head toward the voice, wincing at the sudden shout.  It was the same dark-haired boy from earlier, the one named Jinyoung.

“Well, I guess that answers _that_ question,” Jinyoung continued.  “You scared the  _hell_ out of me.”

“He's _alive?!”_ came a screech from across the house, and in a sudden flash the silver-haired boy—Jaebum—was standing behind Jinyoung.”

“How did you just-” Mark began.  “You know what, never mind.  I don't think I want to know how any of this is possible.”

The redhead sighed.  He was too weak and exhausted to deal with the existential crisis that was sure to come if he thought too deeply about all that he'd seen that day.  The sooner he could get out of that house and away from the killers who’d saved him, the sooner he'd be able to push that day’s events to the back of his mind and forget that any of it had ever happened.

“I really appreciate you guys bringing me back here and taking care of me,” Mark went on, “but I really should go since I'm sure that my parents and my best friend are in panic mode.  So, uh, thanks for not leaving me there to die.”

Mark swung his legs over the side of the couch in one swift motion, but he overestimated the strength he had left in his body and tumbled to the ground as he tried to stand.

Jaebum dashed forward and caught Mark just before he hit the carpet in a speed that shouldn't have been possible.

“Hey, be careful,” Jaebum chided, propping Mark back up against the couch as though he weighed nothing.  “You aren’t strong enough to even stand let alone leave.  Here, let me go get you something to drink.”

Mark sighed, resigned, as the silver-haired boy disappeared through the door he’d come from.  And just like that Mark was once again left alone with Jinyoung.  The redhead shivered as Jinyoung’s eyes raked over him in a way that seemed like a threat.  Though both boys were quite obviously dangerous, Jaebum’s presence was still somehow comforting, like an older brother that would protect his family no matter the cost.  Jinyoung, on the other hand, had a certain wildness to him that Mark couldn’t quite place.  His golden brown eyes had a mischievous twinkle, and only one corner of his mouth curved up into a crooked grin as he stared Mark down in a way that was extremely unsettling.  Mark couldn’t help but worry that Jinyoung had some evil plan to make him keep quiet about what he’d seen.

“You know,” Jinyoung began, reading Mark’s expression, “we don’t really give a shit that you saw us kill those assholes.  You’re a part of this now anyways.  Maybe one day it’ll be _you_  doing the killing.”

Mark shivered at the thought, and his throat closed up when he tried to speak.  Jinyoung had said the words with such certainty that Mark was afraid anything he said to deny them would end up sounding like a lie.  All he could do was close his eyes and shake his head in disbelief.  What had he gotten himself into that he could no longer confidently say he would never kill someone?

His mind flashed back to that clearing in the woods, the red and ragged flesh slit open along a stranger’s neck, the blood staining the bright green grass.  Hues of red and green danced behind his closed eyelids.  Red and green, and the shade from the towering trees that had kept the bright sun at bay.  The colors swirled together in his head until suddenly Mark was the one tearing open somebody’s skin with just his teeth.  The feeling of hot and sticky red liquid dripping down his chin was almost too real to be his imagination.  
  
Then something was being pressed into Mark’s sweating hands, and his eyes snapped open to see a blue plastic water bottle.  He was almost surprised to find that he was still sitting on a black suede couch in an unfamiliar living room, and he hadn’t somehow been transported back to that terrifying moment.

Jaebum sat down gently beside him and Mark let out a breath that he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

“Don’t listen to him,” Jaebum said in a soft and soothing voice.  “He’s just trying to scare you.  Drink, you’ll feel much better.  Then we’ll talk about where we go from here.”

Mark ran through every reason why he shouldn’t drink from a potentially-drugged bottle given to him by a strange murderer, but he caught a sudden whiff of something sweet and strong that was definitely not water, and a fierce hunger flared in his stomach.  All reason fled from his mind as he took a desperate gulp.

The thick liquid that hit his tongue had a taste like honey but with a metallic bite.  It was impossible to describe in a way that sounded anywhere near as appetizing as it was, but it was better than anything he’d ever tasted before.  The syrupy liquid was sweeter than sugar, richer than chocolate cake, and more addicting than any drug.  

He felt his strength returning immediately–or perhaps returning was the wrong word, because the power surging through him was a hundred times more than he’d ever had before.  Mark wouldn’t have been surprised if he could move mountains.  Maybe they were pumping him with steroids, but the warm tingling sensation spreading through his entire body was too wondrous for him to even consider stopping.  And better yet, the agonizing hunger gnawing at his stomach had ceased for the first time since Mark had woken up.

The redhead tipped the water bottle straight up and down, forcing the contents to rush out like an avalanche.  A thin line trickled from his lips and down his chin, leaving a bloodred stain where it dripped onto his jeans.

Mark shut down.

Holding the bottle as far away from his body as his arm would stretch and using all of his willpower to keep himself from downing the rest of it, Mark used the back of his free hand to warily wipe his lips.  The bloody smear left on his pale white skin confirmed his worst suspicions.  

The water bottle exploded against the far wall in a burst of blue plastic shards and sticky crimson, and Jaebum jumped in surprise.  Mark looked at his hands in confusion–he hadn’t even realized that he’d thrown it.

Without a word, Mark stood up on strong legs.  The fatigue had left his system completely.  He made a beeline for the front door, averting his eyes from the bloody mess in the corner.  Avoidance was the only way that Mark could think to resolve this situation.  Pretend it wasn’t happening because there was no way in hell that it even _could_ be happening.  Shit like this didn’t exist, and Mark refused to even acknowledge the possibility.

Jinyoung rose to follow the redhead, but Jaebum put a hand out to stop him.

“Hear those footsteps?  Bambam is here,” Jaebum said in explanation, and somehow Mark heard it even though it was a whisper, even heard the footsteps coming from outside.  “Maybe he should handle this.  Hopefully he’ll do better than we did.”

The white wooden door swung outward before Mark could reach the handle.  There on the porch was a brunet with honey blonde bangs and caramel skin.  He was younger even than Mark, maybe sixteen at the oldest–much too young to be associated with such dangerous people.  The boy stared at him with wide, shocked eyes, his hand frozen halfway to putting a set of car keys in his pocket.

“Who are you?” the brunet asked.  “A human?”  He stood on his tiptoes and peeked around Mark to stare accusingly at Jinyoung and Jaebum, who each had innocent smiles plastered on their faces.  “Since when do you two bring your food home to play with?  And cute food at that.  This isn’t a… kinky thing, is it?”

“Of course not!” Jaebum spluttered out indignantly, cheeks flushed pink.  Jinyoung only grinned wider and waggled his eyebrows suggestively, earning a disgusted snort from the newcomer.

But Mark barely heard the exchange.  He was still focused on the first thing the new boy had said.   _Human?_ Bambam, as Jaebum had called him, pushed past Mark and into the living room while the redhead just stood there frozen, looking down at his hands as if they held all the answers in the universe.

“Human,” Mark whispered into the air.  “Am I not… human?”

It was then that Bambam noticed the bloody mess in the corner of the room.  The lightbulbs in the room suddenly exploded in a bright flash, sparks and broken glass spraying out in all directions.  Mark flinched and covered his face with his arms, but luckily the shards didn’t reach him.

“You  _turned_ someone?!” Bambam screeched in a resounding voice that made the whole room shake.  That voice seemed to be filled with some kind of strange force, and Mark couldn’t help but cower in fear.  Despite how dangerous Mark knew Jinyoung and Jaebum to be, somehow this newcomer came off as even more powerful and terrifying.

Mark almost didn’t say anything as his eyes darted back and forth between Jinyoung, Jaebum, and Bambam, but his curiosity and outrage won over his unease.   _“Turned?_ What do you mean _‘turned?’_  What did you  _DO_ to me?”

His tone was filled with disbelief, and yet in some horrifying way Mark felt that things were finally beginning to make sense.  Mark’s hands were shaking so badly that he had to clench them into fists.

“Well, I can see that you did the absolute worst possible job explaining the situation to him,” Bambam groaned.  “I can’t exactly say that I’m surprised.  Let me handle this since you seem to be lacking in sympathy.”  The two boys quickly stood up until Bambam gave them a pointed glare.  “Sit back down.  I’m not done with you two yet.”

Jaebum huffed and plopped back down on the black suede.  Jinyoung followed suit and flopped down as close to Jaebum as possible, curling up against his side and dropping his head into Jaebum’s shoulder.  For the first time since Mark had woken up, Jinyoung’s eyes shone with regret.

Bambam sighed and pulled at the tips of his blond bangs in contemplation.  Finally he turned a friendly gaze to Mark.  “Anyways.  I apologize for these two idiots.  I’m Bambam.  I’m sixteen, sort of.  It’s nice to meet you!”

The newcomer stepped toward Mark and stuck out his hand for a handshake, but the redhead pulled back cautiously.  He couldn’t trust him no matter how friendly he was.  He couldn’t trust any of them.

“Sort of?” Mark asked warily.

Bambam awkwardly retracted his outstretched hand and used it to rub the back of his neck.  “I’ve been alive a lot longer than you.  Several hundred years longer.  But that’s beside the point.  What’s your name?”

Something about Bambam’s words rang true even in their impossibility, but Mark didn’t want to give much thought to them.  If he started accepting all of these weird occurrences as truth, that meant his normal life was over.  Mark couldn’t help but hold on to his selfish desire to keep that from happening for as long as possible.  He had a brief thought to turn and flee, slipping back into his regular life and pretending that none of this had happened in the first place, just like he’d wanted to do earlier.  But he had a feeling that he wouldn’t get very far if he tried to run, so instead he just murmured, “Mark.”

“Mark,” Bambam repeated.  “Okay, Mark, how old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

Bambam approached Mark carefully as if he were trying to tame a wild animal.  “Okay, so you might want to sit down for this.”

The brunet gently placed a hand on Mark’s back, and this time the redhead didn’t shy away from it.  As soon as Mark felt that calming, reassuring touch, he melted into it.  It felt like something strangely soft and pleasant was flowing into Mark through Bambam’s fingertips.  Whatever was inside of Mark that was holding him together seemed to break, and his knees suddenly gave out.  He leaned all of his weight into Bambam to keep from falling, clutching the boy’s t-shirt in his fists, and allowed himself to be ushered to the couch by the brunet.  Mark cast a distrustful glance to where Jaebum and Jinyoung were cuddling and took a seat on the farthest cushion from the pair, scooting as close to the armrest as he could to put even more space between them.

“Don’t worry, they won’t bite,” Bambam assured, seating himself between Mark and his housemates.  He giggled a bit before continuing, but Mark failed to see what the joke was.  “Or at least they won’t bite _you.”_

Jinyoung coughed to hide his own laugh, and Jaebum smacked him on the arm.  Bambam tapped his fingers on his knees, the gears in his mind spinning furiously as he tried to think of where to begin.

In the quiet, Mark could hear only his and Bambam’s breathing.  He took a quick peek at the other two boys–there was no obvious rise or fall of their chests.  Mark got the sudden urge to try out an experiment, hoping more than anything to prove himself wrong.  He hesitantly held his breath and began to count the seconds.  One.  Two.  Three.  Four.

Bambam cleared his throat.  “Alright, so this isn’t exactly an easy thing to explain, but I’ll do my best.”

Ten.  Eleven.  Twelve.

Bambam took a deep breath before continuing, looking Mark straight in the eyes.  “Not everyone that you see is human.  No matter how hard we may try to blend in, we will never be human.”

Twenty.  Twenty-one.  Twenty-two.  Mark’s hands began to tremble.  He couldn’t help but feel that those words were directed at _him._ But despite his sneaking suspicions, despite the countless clues directing him to that dreaded conclusion, he couldn’t force himself to believe it.  Not yet at least.  There was no way he wasn’t human, no way he’d never be human again… right?  But still the seconds kept ticking away.  Twenty-eight.  Twenty-nine.  Thirty.

The brunet went on with his explanation cautiously, speaking softly and slowly as if somehow that would lessen the blow of his words.  “Some of us are witches, with strong connections to nature that allow us to draw magic from the world around us.  The stronger the witch, the more magic they can channel.  What you saw earlier when I got angry and the lights exploded–that’s because I’m a witch.”

“I’d like to say that’s the first time he’s done that,” Jinyoung added playfully, “but it’s not.  It’s a good thing none of us uses candles.”

Mark would’ve laughed if he weren’t currently questioning his very existence.  Forty-five.  Forty-six.

The supposed witch only glared at his friend.  “If you didn’t piss me off so much then we wouldn’t have to keep replacing the lightbulbs, would we?”

Jinyoung chuckled.  “Fair enough.”

Mark’s knuckles were white from how tightly he was gripping the couch cushion.  None of this could be real, but he didn’t have it in himself to question Bambam’s logic.  He wasn’t even sure if he _c_ _ould_ question it anymore.  The only thing he could think to do was go along with it, but he was still far from fully convinced, even as the numbers reached dangerously close to the threshold of how long a normal person could hold their breath.  Fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven.

“So you’re… a witch,” Mark choked out.  “And witches are immortal?”

Bambam shook his head sadly.  He suddenly looked exhausted.  “Not most of us.  But there are a few special cases, myself included.  That’s far too long of a story to get into right now though, and it’s not important anyways.”

On any other day, Mark might have pried further, especially with that downcast expression on the other’s face.  Mark was the kind of person that always wanted to make others happy even above himself, so he’d do anything to make even a somewhat-suspicious stranger feel better.  But today he just nodded.  He was too lost himself to even think about helping anybody else.  He pointed a wavering finger at where Jinyoung and Jaebum were snuggled up together on the other side of the couch.  “And they also are…?”

“Definitely not,” Bambam said firmly.  “Those two are-”

“Vampires,” Mark cut in as the realization hit him.  It should have been obvious from the start.  But Mark had been ignoring the evidence, trying desperately to not believe something that was now staring him right in the face.  The super speed, the wooden stakes… and the blood.  There was nothing else that it could be.  “Then that means that I’m also-”

Mark cut himself off.  He didn’t have to say it.  He could no longer argue it, and he just couldn’t bring himself to say the word aloud when he’d finally accepted it to be true.  It had been long past a minute since Mark had begun his experiment, yet he still hadn’t even felt the urge to breathe.  His lungs should’ve been burning.  All he felt instead was hunger.  He wanted more of what was in that bottle–more of the _blood._ It was the most delicious thing he’d ever tasted, and he wished that he’d finished the whole thing instead of freaking out.  That should’ve been enough to answer any of his doubts.

As Mark’s thoughts turned to blood, he could feel something sharp lightly poking at the inside of his mouth.  He parted his lips and felt around with trembling fingers to find the intrusions.  His canine teeth were longer than he remembered them to be and came to wicked points–fangs.

And just like that the final bit of uncertainty was stripped away, leaving Mark feeling empty and afraid.

Mark instantly felt sick.  His gut churned and he doubled over, emptying the contents of his stomach on the floor.  He clutched the edge of the couch even more tightly in his fists to the point that his fingers started to ache.  When he opened his eyes all he saw was dark crimson against a white carpet.  His hands, too, were red with blood.  He threw up for the second time until there was nothing left, and even then he kept dry heaving until his throat stung and his muscles ached.

Someone came over and started to rub his back in soothing circles.  Mark didn’t look up until his body finally quit rejecting its new food source and was surprised to find that Jinyoung was the one beside him.  Bambam and Jaebum sat deathly still on the couch, eyes wide in concern.  They seemed scared to move lest it startle the new vampire.

“Looks like you’re gonna be like me,” Jinyoung said fondly, squeezing Mark’s shoulder.  “And unfortunately for you, that’s not a good thing.  That means this transition is gonna be really fucking hard on you.”

“It’s better like you than me,” Jaebum spoke up, voice soft and almost ashamed.  “If he were like me, he’d be a monster.”  
  
“We’re  _all_ monsters” his boyfriend shot back.  His words were sorrowful but firm.  “We just have to try and be good ones.”

Mark couldn’t help but worry about what those words meant for his future.  He stood up on shaky legs, wiping the regurgitated blood from his mouth with the back of his hand.  His voice was small when he spoke.  “You’ll help me with this, right?  I won’t have to hurt people?”  His voice shrunk even more until he was barely whispering.  He seemed to be talking more to himself than anyone else.  “I won’t have to hurt… him.”  The last part didn’t come out as a question but rather a desperate effort to convince himself of the words.

“We’ll help you,” Jinyoung affirmed.  “I’m pretty much the best coach you could ask for.” He stopped to reach into the back pocket of his jeans and fished out a black iPhone.  Mark’s eyes went wide when he recognized it.  “This is yours, by the way.  I confiscated it from you after it wouldn’t stop ringing.  I put all three of our phone numbers in here, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us.  You’re our responsibility, so you can call us absolutely any time that you need to.  We’ll always be here for you.”  Jinyoung pressed the home button and scrolled quizzically through the notifications on the lock screen.  He continued with a much less serious tone.  “You know, I’m pretty sure this Jackson guy called and texted more than even your parents did.”

Mark wasn’t quite sure where the burst of speed came from, but he was at Jinyoung’s side in a millisecond.  The older vampire had much more experience, however, and he easily pulled the device out of his reach before he could snatch it.  Jinyoung slid the phone back into his pocket and shook his head.  “There’s a catch,” he explained.

Mark lunged at the older vampire, fangs bared and fingernails lengthened into pointed claws.  Bambam threw out a hand in Mark’s direction, and the redhead found himself unable to move a muscle.  He wasn’t sure what he would’ve done if Bambam hadn’t stopped him.  Hearing Jackson’s name in this situation had just sounded wrong, but having him brought up and being thwarted from contacting him was much worse.  Mark’s vision was going red—he was just so  _angry_.  He had no idea where it was even coming from.

There was a gentle hand on Mark’s shoulder, and he looked up to find Bambam smiling kindly at his side.  A comforting warmth was spreading through Mark at the touch, calming him down.  It was the same feeling as when Bambam had touched him earlier.  Mark wondered if that too was magic.

The spell freezing Mark in place was lifted, but he kept himself rooted in place.  He could at least afford them a chance to explain.  “I’m listening,” Mark gritted out.

Jaebum sprung up off the couch and stood beside his boyfriend.  “Unless you plan for your mortal life to become your immortal life,” he began, gesturing to Jinyoung, “then sooner or later you’ll have to cut ties with your family and friends.  They will age and die.  You won’t.  So unless you make them one of us like I did with Jinyoung–which I only recommend in the case of true love–then the only option is to leave them.”

The brutal truth of those words hit Mark like a wave, and he couldn’t believe he hadn’t thought of that particular hurdle before now.  He could feel tears prickling at the back of his eyes.  He loved Jackson, but he loved him so much that he couldn’t bring him into this mess.  How long until Mark’s lack of aging would start to get suspicious?  How long did he have before he had to disappear and leave everything behind?  How long did he have until goodbye?

Mark dug his fingernails into his palms, wincing at the dull pain when the nails sharpened without warning and broke his skin.  Yesterday he’d been a regular human whose biggest worry was his one-sided crush on his best friend.  Today he was a monster.  And on a far-off tomorrow, he’d have to leave everything that he knew behind.

“Okay,” Mark finally said with a resigned sigh, curling and uncurling his fingers that were now slick with his own blood.  Apparently he’d sliced deeper into his flesh than he’d thought.  “I’ll prepare myself for the day I have to leave.”  
  
He put his hand out bloodied palm up, asking for his phone to be returned to him, but once again Jinyoung shook his head.

“That day may be sooner than you think,” Jinyoung said reluctantly.  Jaebum grabbed his boyfriend’s hand and rubbed the back of it with his thumb in a show of support.

Bambam pulled his hand from its resting place on Mark’s shoulder like he’d been scalded.  Terror shone the witch’s eyes as he looked back and forth between his two friends, trying desperately to decode the message passing between them.

The calming aura slipped away from Mark as soon as the hand left him, but he had a feeling he’d be much worse off if Bambam’s fear had been let inside him instead.  For something to scare such a powerful witch, it must be more horrifying than someone new to this world could even imagine.  But at that moment that wasn’t what was worrying Mark the most.

“They’re here, aren’t they?” Bambam murmured at the same time Mark asked, “What do you mean  _sooner than I think?”_

The two older vampires exchanged an uncertain look before Jaebum spoke up.  “I guess we owe both of you a full explanation.  There were men that we killed in the forest.  Men that shot Mark when Jinyoung tried to use him as a bargaining chip.”  His voice rose in speed and urgency as he went.  “They were vampire hunters that had somehow managed to track us down.  We tried to lose them in the forest, but there were more of them than we thought and they managed to corner us.  They would’ve killed us both without hesitation or a second thought.  They even enjoy it.  Enjoy torturing us.”

Jinyoung coughed awkwardly, directing his words at Mark.  “When I saw you walk by, I had the thought that if I took a hostage they’d let Jaebum go.  I guess I should’ve known that they wouldn’t give a shit about just one single human, and that’s entirely my fault.  It’s one-hundred percent my fault that you died.  And I know that I will never be able to make this up to you, but for what it’s worth, I am  _so so_ sorry.”  The pleading look in his eyes showed that he truly meant it.  He looked so different from his typical jokester self.  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen and I hope that one day you’ll forgive me.”  Jinyoung looked down at his feet.  “I was just so desperate to save Jaebum that I wasn’t really thinking of anybody else.”

Mark couldn’t quite wrap his head around why they had chosen now to explain this.  What was the relevance, and what did it mean for Mark specifically?

Bambam seemed to know exactly what it meant though, and whatever it was terrified him.  His face had gone ghostly pale, and he couldn’t keep his hands from trembling.  The pure fear was apparent in his wide eyes.  “So that’s it then,” he whispered.  “After all that we’ve been through, we have to leave it all behind again.”  His voice faltered, and he paused to take a shaky breath.  “We should leave tonight.”  
  
And there it was.  There was the relevance.  It hit Mark like a bullet to the chest.  He felt his heart squeeze painfully, and his voice came out as a high-pitched squeak.   _"Tonight?!”_

Jinyoung reached out to comfort Mark, but the redhead pulled away harshly.  “One of the hunters survived,” Jinyoung reasoned.  “He’ll come after us again with backup, especially because we killed his partners.  There’s no way he’s going to let us go.  He’ll hunt us until we’re dead.”

“But they don’t know about me!” Mark exploded.  “They don’t know that I survived.  Why should I have to go with you?”

“You don’t think he’d recognize you if you saw you?” Jinyoung fired back with a raised eyebrow.  “And even if he didn’t, do you really think you can figure this out on your own?  Calling and texting us won’t be enough.  You’re gonna need us with you if you want to do this without casualties.  Without us, you’ll just be the next vampire serial killer.  Or a hunter will find you and you’ll be  _actually_ dead this time.  Trust me, it’s in your best interest to come with us.  We can help you.  Vampires can command humans to do their bidding, so we can force your friends to forget you.  It’ll be like you never existed.”  Jinyoung smiled at him sympathetically, trying to cheer him up.  “You can start over.”

Mark could feel all sense of rationality fleeing from him.  He couldn’t imagine a world in which Jackson had no memory of him.  He couldn’t imagine a world without his best friend, so how could he ask Jackson to do the same?  Of course, Jackson wouldn’t have any idea what he was missing.  Mark would just be suffering alone.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he forced out in a strangled voice.  “I didn’t ask for any of this.”

Jinyoung sped toward him in a blur, and Mark gasped as a sudden sharp pain exploded from his chest.  The redhead looked down to find Jinyoung’s hand plunged deep beneath his skin, fingers curled around his unbeating heart.  A pool of red bloomed outward from each new wound and soaked deep into the fabric of his shirt.  Jinyoung was quite literally holding Mark’s life in his hand, and the younger vampire was too petrified to move even a millimeter for fear of tearing his heart right from his body.

“If we had left you there in the forest, you’d be dead right now,” Jinyoung growled, tightening his grip on Mark’s heart and getting an agonized whimper in response.  His voice was low and dangerous.  “I could rip your heart out right here and now if that’s what you’d prefer.”

Jinyoung’s eyes were steely, jaw clenched, a complete 180 from the carefree attitude that Mark had already gotten used to.  Fire burned in his eyes as he stared into Mark’s soul, and yet there was no malice in his expression.  Though intense, his gaze was reassuring and almost imploring.  That look reassured Mark that Jinyoung wouldn’t hurt him unless he wanted him to, and despite the fact that one wrong move would be all it took to end Mark’s life, he suddenly felt no fear.  Jinyoung was pushing him to the edge on purpose, forcing Mark to make a choice between a harsh and unimaginably dangerous eternity or–the ultimate nothing.  And Mark had no doubt that if he chose death with certainty, Jinyoung would follow his wish.

Mark closed his eyes and felt a tear slip down his cheek.  The room was filled with nothing but suffocating silence.  Could he live far from home with complete strangers, learning how to be a monster?  Was that better than the alternative?  He wasn’t sure which answer was right, or if there was a right answer to begin with.  But regardless, he wasn’t ready to make that decision yet–he had to see Jackson first.  Jackson would know what to do; he  _always_ knew what to do, probably because he knew Mark better than Mark knew himself.  And that meant that Mark had to way out of this house without anybody following him.

“Please, you’re hurting me,” Mark whined, shooting a pleading look at Bambam.  “Help me, Bambam.”

Honestly Mark actually appreciated what Jinyoung was trying to do for him, and the pain was pushed back to the farthest recesses of his mind.  But what he needed now was some kind of distraction, and his best hope for that was to start a fight between the three friends.  He felt a little bad taking advantage of them, but after all he’d been through that day he figured he deserved a little selfishness.

Bambam threw his hand out in front of him and gave it a twist.  Jinyoung abruptly retracted his hand from Mark’s body and collapsed to his knees, screaming and clawing at his head.  His face contorted in agony.

“Aren’t you being a little harsh?” Bambam criticized.  “The boy’s still in shock.”

“Aren’t _you_ being harsh?” Jaebum shot right back, rushing to his boyfriend’s side and pulling him close to his chest as he continued to shriek.  “He’s just trying to help.”  
  
Bambam lowered his hand to the side, shaking his head in disbelief.  Jinyoung finally stopped screaming and threw Bambam an accusing glare which the witch returned unflinchingly.  “You weren’t trying to help when you got him killed.  It’s so typical of a vampire to be self-righteous regardless of the situation.”

“If I didn’t grab the kid when I did, Jaebum would be dead,” Jinyoung screeched, still on the ground.  “I might be dead too.  Is that what you want?”

In that moment as the friends turned on each other, Mark was completely forgotten.  And in a burst of adrenaline and superhuman speed, he swiped his phone from Jinyoung’s back pocket and was out the front door before they could even blink.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See you next time!
> 
> Find me on social media:  
> Instagram: @vampycat.cos  
> Twitter: @darling_hyunjin


	3. Prologue: Confessions and Goodbyes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can you believe it took three chapters for Jackson to show up?
> 
> Please enjoy this giant chapter. It's almost the same size as the first two chapters combined lol my bad. It's kinda cheesy and kinda sad and I hope you like it.

Mark hadn’t been entirely sure if he’d be able to figure out his super speed when it came time to make his escape, but it was as simple as breathing had once been. As he slipped past rows of cookie-cutter houses with backyard swimming pools and white picket fences—the kind he’d once wanted to live in when he was old enough to settle down—Mark could feel anger rising within him. This was the kind of neighborhood where everything was perfect even if it wasn’t. And it was the kind of perfect that Mark wasn’t allowed to have anymore.

The world seemed to slow down around him, or maybe he was just running faster, faster, faster. Faster than a race car, faster than a bullet, faster than life and death and change and everything else that Mark was trying to run away from. Maybe if he just kept running, he could outrun time itself.

The wind was sharp and cold against his face, but at the moment that pain was the only thing that felt truly real to him. The further he pushed his body, the more the wind cut into his skin. It was a comfort to him. He smiled sardonically, realizing this was the most alive he’d felt all day and it was only because he was hurting. He ran faster as the injustice of everything bubbled up inside of him and started to burn him from within.

He was angry at Jinyoung for pulling him into the world of vampires, for killing him, for saving him. Angry at Jaebum for getting caught by the hunters and forcing Jinyoung to think quickly. Angry at the hunters for trying to eliminate a threat that they didn’t fully understand. Angry at Jackson and his parents for being part of a world that Mark couldn’t belong to anymore.

Angry at himself for wanting to leave the country but not being able to, for wanting to stay but knowing he shouldn’t, for wanting to die before things got too hard to bear, for wanting to live even though he was a monster.

His anger at the world surged and exploded. All the fight left him in a single instant. He was standing on the sidewalk of his old elementary school playground. He hadn’t been intending to come here; his feet had done that all by themselves. It was always deserted in the evening, so this was the place where he and Jackson had always to come to think. Sometimes they’d talk late into the night, about their hopes and fears and the future. Other times they’d just lay side by side and stare up at the stars, and Mark would sneak glances at Jackson because he was honestly a much nicer view. Perhaps Mark’s subconscious had known that the tranquility of this safe haven was what he needed right now.

Mark dragged his feet to the closest water fountain and carefully washed the blood from his hands. The sight of red rinsing down the drain made him feel faint, but it also made him feel strangely like he was cleansing himself of his wrongdoings. He looked down at his now unstained hands and felt almost normal. He cleaned his mouth out too while he was at it, grimacing because he’d never thought water had a taste but now it was like eating mud. He had a feeling that swallowing it would’ve upset his stomach, so he spit the water in the grass beside him and glared at the drinking fountain. At least he finally felt clean, but the nasty taste still lingered on his tongue.

With that task out of the way, the vampire flopped over onto the sidewalk, resting his head against the side of the water fountain. The steel was cold against his forehead but he couldn’t bring himself to move. Instead he hugged his knees to his chest and cried, staring into the swiftly-darkening sky. For the first time in his life, he felt truly and utterly alone.

Mark absentmindedly toyed with the bracelet on his wrist as he wept, the metal cool to the touch. It was made of circular sterling silver beads fused together, the pattern interrupted only by a single dainty crescent moon charm. Mark had always spun the bracelet around his arm when he needed comfort, but today it only made him anxious as he thought about Jackson and their relationship up until now.

It was honestly shocking that they’d even become friends in the first place let alone best friends. Jackson had always been fearless, endlessly confident, and full of boundless energy—the kind of person that others were easily drawn to by his dazzling, upbeat personality. Mark was brooding, shy, insecure, and neurotic—a silent introvert who preferred to hide within the shell of himself and bottle up his constant fears. Mark shied away from attention while Jackson basked in it, _thrived_ in it. They couldn’t be more different if they tried. It had dawned on him once that Jackson was a living representation of sun and Mark was the moon, and ever since then he’d never been able to shake that comparison from his mind.

Since the day that Jackson had approached that quiet, lonely boy in elementary school and practically forced him to become his friend, Mark couldn’t help but think that eventually Jackson would notice how much his friend was holding him back and finally let go of him. Jackson was worth so much more and could do so much better. And if he ever figured that out, Mark would be left with nothing while Jackson would realize his full potential. After all, the whole world revolved around the sun. It was silly to think that the moon could ever keep up when it had to reflect light from the sun to even shine in the first place.

Those self-deprecating thoughts had haunted him on and off for years, until one day freshman year when Mark was feeling particularly self-conscious and blurted out his sun and moon metaphor before he had time to think it over in his head. But Jackson’s reaction hadn’t been at all what he’d expected.

“You know, you’re right!” Jackson had said excitedly, clapping his hands together as if he was having a sudden revelation. “I’m obnoxious and bright, always demanding to be the center of attention.” He was speaking animatedly, but his tone turned almost bashful as he said the next part. “And you’re unobtrusive and kind, always there to show the way in the dark like a beacon.”

Then Jackson had taken Mark’s hands in his own, and Mark had felt the heat of a deep blush blooming across his cheeks. Though Jackson was usually loud and silly, he could be surprisingly deep and philosophical when the situation called for it.

“And together,” Jackson had continued in a conspiratorial whisper, grin spreading wide across his face, “we balance each other out. It’s like we were made for each other.”

After that day, Mark had started to truly appreciate the beauty of not just the sun but the moon as well. Maybe he’d even started to appreciate his own beauty too. Perhaps it wasn’t so bad that the moon needed the sun’s light in order to shine—because maybe, just _maybe,_ Jackson needed him too.

And when Jackson had surprised him on his next birthday with the silver moon bracelet and showed him the one with a little sun charm that he’d gotten to match, Mark never went a day without wearing it. But that was okay, because Mark never saw Jackson without his sun bracelet either.

Now, as Mark sat slumped against the side of the side of a playground water fountain, the metal moon bracelet felt cold enough to burn his skin. He could sense that things were rapidly changing, and he was powerless to stop it. For the first time ever, he was scared to talk to his best friend. His own world had changed so much in less than twenty-four hours, and he was worried that Jackson didn’t have a place in it anymore. He had no idea what tonight would mean for them, or for his future in general.

His tears fell for longer than Mark would’ve liked to admit, his thoughts darkening gradually along with the sky around him. As he wiped the last of the droplets from his eyes, he finally gathered enough courage to pull his phone from his pocket. He’d thought quickly enough to steal it from Jinyoung as he’d stealthily fled the house, but he’d been too afraid to look at it until now.

The lock screen displayed countless messages and over a hundred missed calls from his parents and Jackson. The latest text from Jackson was only a couple of minutes ago:

 

> please please please be okay
> 
>  

Mark opened up the messages app and began to scroll up through what seemed like an endless amount of texts from his best friend ranging from “call me” and “please just tell me you’re alright” to slightly angrier ones like “you better have a good reason for this” and “if you just fell asleep somewhere and i’m worrying over nothing i’m gonna kill you.”

An unexpected giggle escaped from Mark’s lips at his best friend’s mood swings, but he choked on the laughter and dropped his phone in shock when he felt a buzz against his hands. The message window automatically scrolled down to show him the latest message from Jackson:

 

> you’re the most important person in the world to me. please just tell me you’re safe, i can’t lose you
> 
>  

Mark was calling Jackson before he could even think it through. He was too overwhelmed, his brain short-circuiting as he pictured how worried his best friend must be right now.

Jackson picked up before it even had the chance to ring. His voice was husky and thick. It sounded like he’d been crying. “Mark?”

The fledgling vampire wasn’t prepared for the emotion that came along with hearing Jackson’s voice. There was the guilt of scaring his friend and the relief of finally hearing something familiar when everything around him seemed suddenly so foreign. And there was the fear that even though Jackson’s voice _sounded_ the same, there was still something about it that felt completely alien, and maybe that was because Mark was the one that had changed. It was like he was on the outside looking into a world that was once his own but not anymore.

“Mark?” Jackson repeated frantically. “Are you there?”

There was so much that Mark wanted to say to him. I love you. I miss you. I don’t know if I belong with you anymore, and I’m scared that one day soon I’ll have to leave you. Instead he just whispered, “I’m at the playground.”

He clicked the end button before Jackson could respond. He wasn’t sure what to do or say, he just needed to see his best friend. He had a feeling that having Jackson right in front of him would help to clear his head, or at least lift some of the weight from his shoulders.

It took Jackson less than ten minutes to get there. He was running as he arrived, and when he stopped in front of Mark his chest was heaving. He just stood there for a while, frozen, the only sound his ragged breathing.

Mark could only imagine what he looked like from Jackson’s perspective. He was still on the ground, legs tucked into his chest with his arms wrapped around them and his head leaning against the drinking fountain. His hair was disheveled, eyes puffy and red-rimmed from crying, and his borrowed shirt was stained with blood. He probably looked like a frightened stray dog that would flee at any sudden movement. Jackson opened and closed his mouth, either unsure of what to say or just too scared to say anything. Then finally he narrowed his eyes and yelled, “You asshole!”

The redhead could feel a smile tugging at his lips. Mark was the first to move, standing slowly on legs much weaker than expected. Hunger flared within him, agonizing and strong, but he shoved it down as best he could. Jackson’s eyes were fixed on Mark as he stepped closer, and suddenly they were in each other’s arms; Mark wasn’t sure if he’d reached out for the embrace or if Jackson had, or maybe they’d both made the move as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

The air was thick with worry, relief, fear, pain, loss. Mark couldn’t tell which emotions were his and which were Jackson’s, all of them swirling around them and melding together into one giant mess of feelings. Mark could barely even tell where he ended and Jackson began, or maybe they were never meant to be separate in the first place.

Mark buried his head into Jackson’s shoulder and only when he felt the dampness of his best friend’s t-shirt did he realize that he was crying again. As soon as he noticed the tears, they started to fall even harder until he was a sobbing mess for the second time that night. Jackson was crying too if his quiet sniffling was any indication, and his strong, safe arms tightened around Mark, pulling the pair impossibly closer. In that moment they weren’t Mark and Jackson anymore—they were MarkandJackson, two parts of a complete unit that had finally come together in a beautifully imperfect whole. They may not be the perfect puzzle piece fit, but they sure as hell worked better together than apart.

Then Jackson pulled back just slightly. His face was close enough that Mark could feel his breath, his bright eyes piercing into Mark’s. There was something so deep about his gaze, but Mark was too breathless to decipher it.

“I love you,” Jackson murmured, and Mark didn’t even get the chance to react because Jackson’s lips were on his. It was a soft and fleeting kiss, so quick that Mark wasn’t able to kiss back before it was over.

Jackson rested his forehead against Mark’s with a reserved sigh. The vampire was too stunned to move or speak. He didn’t even quite believe that this was real life. He’d been in love with Jackson for so long that perhaps his dreams were now leaking into reality in the form of vivid hallucinations. But he could still feel the warmth of Jackson’s lips on his in such stark contrast to Mark’s now cold body. He’d never expected for Jackson to return his feelings, but he’d always secretly hoped for it. And now that he finally got his wish, it just felt like way too much with everything else that was going on. It took everything in him to not scream at the top of his lungs, release the rage he felt at how unfair the turn of events was.

“You worried the _hell_ out of me,” Jackson growled. “I thought something happened to you, and it hurt so fucking much. I can’t lose you.” His voice was starting to waver, and he was sniffling between words. “I know you don’t feel the same, and I know that this might ruin everything. But after being abroad for so long and especially after the emotional roller coaster I’ve been through today, I really need to get this off my chest. So please just hear me out and then later we can pretend this never happened.”

Jackson’s muscles were tense underneath Mark’s arms, and the brunet took a deep breath like he was steeling himself to say something that he wasn’t sure was a good idea. He sounded terrified but determined as he continued. “I’ve always thought that one day I wanted to find someone who makes me feel the way that dancing does. Like no matter what’s going on in my life, I’m strong enough to face the world with my head held high. Like I always have something to fall back on when things get tough or to give me courage when I need it. Someone that makes me happy just being in their presence. And that’s you. The sun is just blinding, but the moon is the brightest thing in a sea of darkness. I know that I always call you my moon, but you’re not _just_ that. You’re my _everything._ I’m so in love with you, Mark Tuan.”

Jackson tightened his grip on Mark to the point that it was almost painful, like he was afraid that Mark would run away or disappear into thin air if he let go. “Just let me hold you for a little longer,” he continued in a whisper, “and then tomorrow we’ll forget all about it.”

Mark opened and closed his mouth a couple times. It wasn’t that he had nothing to say but that he had _too much._ So many words were climbing up his throat and threatening to spill out, but he couldn’t decide which were the right ones or if he should even speak his mind at all. _The sun isn’t blinding, it’s brilliant and shining and warm. You’re so full of energy and life that you practically glow, even just being near you can brighten up my worst days. The moon only reflects the sun’s light, so it’s the sun that brings out all of the moon’s true beauty._

The redhead had always felt that there was more darkness inside him than light, and now as a savage creature of the night that was even more true. But even despite all that, Jackson could always make him feel cozy and happy and loved, and that was worth everything. Mark owed more to Jackson than he would ever know, and loved him more than he could ever say.

 _I love you, I love you, I love you,_ Mark almost shouted, but his throat was closing up now and he felt like he was choking on too many words. Everything was so twisted up inside. A heavy weight settled over him, and his chest was painfully tight. It seemed almost wrong to finally tell the truth after everything in his life had become so confusing and dangerous and messy. Maybe Jackson loved Mark just as much as he loved Jackson, but maybe it was too late to matter now. And in a different universe, Mark would’ve said those three words and been the happiest he’d ever been. But currently all he could think of was that one day this would all be over and that one day might be soon, and none of it was fair at all.

So Mark said the only thing he could think of, and the closest to the truth that he could manage. “I don’t want to forget it all tomorrow.” _I don’t want you to forget either, but it might be better if you do,_ he added in his head.

He was fully prepared to tack on another sentence about how even though he wouldn’t forget what had happened, he wasn’t in the right mindset for a relationship right now. It was true anyways. His head hadn’t been clear since he’d woken up as a vampire, and adding a relationship into the mix was probably a horrible idea. Besides, one day Mark would be gone, so letting Jackson go was the only option.

But when Jackson gasped at those words and pushed himself back to stare at Mark, his eyes shining and hopeful, all rational thought was thrown out the window. Mark’s fingers dug into Jackson’s shoulders to keep his hands from shaking, and he found himself saying the exact opposite of what he’d been planning. “If one day I told you that I had to leave and never come back, would you run away with me?”

Jackson blinked up at him in confusion, but he didn’t hesitate when he breathed out, “Yes.”

This time it was Mark that dove forward and made the first move. It was like there was a strong magnetic force pulling him into Jackson, and there was no way he’d been able to fight against it. Jackson made a noise of surprise as Mark crashed his lips against his. It was heated, passionate, and fast-paced, nothing like the last kiss, but Jackson had no issue keeping up. In fact, Jackson buried his hand in Mark’s hair, tugging at the red locks and turning Mark’s head so that he could more easily devour him. The gentle pain from the hair-pulling had Mark groaning in pleasure, which only encouraged Jackson more.

Jackson nibbled on Mark’s bottom lip and then followed with his tongue, begging for entrance. There was no way in hell that Mark would’ve said no. He parted his lips without hesitation, and immediately Jackson’s tongue was tasting every corner of his mouth. Mark moaned louder this time, but it was swallowed up by Jackson’s lips and tongue.

Liquid heat coursed through Mark’s veins—he felt like he was melting from the inside out. Maybe the saying ‘sparks were flying’ was a little cliche, but Mark couldn’t think of anything more accurate. He knew right then and there that Jackson was the only one for him. And Mark had never been too sure of what he thought about fate, but as Jackson pulled him impossibly closer, exploring the expanse of Mark’s back with one hand while the other threaded through the soft red strands of his hair, Mark found himself believing that maybe two people could truly be made for each other.

Mark pulled away, overwhelmed with emotions that seemed ready to explode from his chest. He felt so happy he could burst into tears, but in the back of his mind was also a devastating sadness and worry. He was at his highest high and his lowest low at the same time. He rested his head in the crook of Jackson’s neck, trying to take in the moment so that no matter what happened he would remember it clearly.

This close to Jackson, he could hear the human’s heavy breathing and the frantic thumping of his heart. Mark’s own heart was silent and his chest still. He wondered how long it would take him to get used to that.

“So, I hope that I’m not jumping to conclusions here,” Jackson murmured, his face so close that Mark could feel Jackson’s breath ruffling his hair, “but since you kissed me, can I take it to mean that you love me too?”

He sounded so optimistic and uncharacteristically shy, but Mark couldn’t even hear his words over the sound of his friend’s pounding heart. When had it gotten so loud? Those steady, fast-paced thumps echoed in Mark’s eardrums, blocking out all other noise. _Thump. Thump. Thump._ Maybe laying on his shoulder had been a bad idea, because he could hear that heartbeat so loudly with his ear so close to his Jackson’s skin.

Mark imagined the blood pumping through his friend’s body with each beat, and it made his mouth water. How had it taken him so long to notice such a beautiful sound? _Thump. Thump. Thump._ Sweet, delicious blood.

“Mark?” Jackson asked with a nervous chuckle. “I was kinda hoping for an answer.”

  
The vampire opened his eyes and lifted his head a bit to look down at where he’d just been laying. Jackson was wearing a scoop-neck shirt that dipped low enough to reveal the pale expanse of flesh where his shoulder met his neck. Mark’s gaze was instantly drawn to a protruding jugular vein. All he’d have to do was tilt the head a little and he’d have perfect access.

“Hey, Mark, are you okay?”

Mark could hear nothing but that frantic pounding. It sounded like he was underwater, every noise coming through muted and far-away except for the crashing in his ears. Jackson’s heart was the only thing that he could focus on.

 _“Mark,”_ Jackson said with more emphasis this time, squeezing the vampire’s shoulders lightly.

The boy in question made no response, leaning closer toward the thick vein in Jackson’s neck that seemed to be calling to him. He threaded a hand through his best friend’s hair and roughly jerked his head to the side to give himself better access to that practically glowing expanse of skin. Mark licked along the jugular vein with the flat of his tongue, earning him a soft moan from Jackson that would’ve gone straight to Mark’s dick if he’d been in the right mind to actually process the sound. But the vampire was way too focused on the salty taste of Jackson’s skin that promised something much more delicious just beneath it and on the heartbeat that he swore he could feel against his tongue.

“While this is a nice distraction,” Jackson began in a breathy voice, “I’m still not going to let you get away without answer–”

Jackson’s words died in his throat and were replaced by a sharp scream of pain as Mark plunged fangs into his neck.

“What the _hell,_ Mark?” Jackson asked with a shaky, uncomfortable laugh. “I don’t mind things a little rough, but you just broke skin.”

Hot blood flowed into Mark’s mouth, thick and sweet. He wasn’t prepared for the adrenaline surge to be a hundred times more intense than it had been back at Jinyoung and Jaebum’s house. Blood tasted so much better when it was fresh, and the power that seemed to be crackling inside of him was so much stronger than what he’d felt earlier. Mark wanted more, _needed_ more. He was already addicted.

The vampire sunk his fangs in deeper and blood quickly flooded his mouth. Mark never had much of a sweet tooth, but this was so much more appetizing than any other delicacy and left him with the wonderful tingly feeling of an unfamiliar power. He had a feeling that even the nectar of the gods couldn’t compare.

 _“Ouch,”_ Jackson cried, “that fucking _hurt.”_ Then he let out a small gasp of realization and tightened a hand around Mark’s bicep. “Are you… drinking my blood?”

Mark continued to suck from the twin wounds with no acknowledgment that he’d heard the question. He was so in love with this taste, with the tingling warmth that spread through his body. He drank eagerly, swallowing down blood in huge gulps.

“Okay, I know for sure that this isn’t some kink now,” Jackson decided, his voice soft and surprisingly calm. “This probably sounds insane but, by any chance, are you a vampire? I mean, you’ve got to be, right?”

Jackson slipped a hand into Mark’s hair, gently tugging the vampire closer to himself so he could feed in a more comfortable position. Mark hummed in approval as he continued to drink. He could feel himself getting full, but he continued greedily lapped up the blood for a while longer. No matter how much he already had, he needed more. More. _Moremoremore._

“Hey, that’s a little too much,” Jackson said softly. “I’m starting to feel–”

Jackson’s words trailed off as he fell forward into Mark. The vampire felt like a bucket of water had just been dumped over his head, and a sudden spike of terror rose within him. He hastily removed his fangs from Jackson’s neck and rubbed his mouth on his sleeve to clean up the blood that trickled down his chin. He turned a frightened stare toward Jackson. The human’s eyes were hazy and unfocused, and his body was dead weight in Mark’s arms. He was out cold. _Shit._ Just how much blood had Jackson lost? _What had Mark done?_

Mark felt a wave of nausea hit him again, but this time he held it in. Horror washed over him as he shook Jackson desperately. He loved this boy, loved him more than the blood and the power—or at least he should have. He wasn’t quite sure anymore, couldn’t quite trust himself. If Jackson was truly his top priority then this shouldn’t have been able to happen. The truth was that he hadn’t been able to resist hurting Jackson. Even now he felt a strong pull toward Jackson’s still-bleeding neck, but with his hunger now fully sated it wasn’t as difficult to hold himself back anymore.

Jinyoung’s words suddenly flashed to the front of Mark’s mind. All vampires were monsters. They just had to try and be good ones. Mark had a feeling that almost killing the love of his life didn’t make him one of the good ones.

“Please, please, stay with me,” Mark begged in a panicked voice. “Please wake up. I need you. Please. I’m sorry, I’m so so _so_ sorry. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Please come back to me.”

He had no idea what to do in a situation like this. Did he call an ambulance? Did he wait to see if Jackson woke up? He wasn’t even aware of how much blood he’d taken, so he had no idea h0w serious this was.

The vampire lowered the two of them to the ground and laid Jackson’s head in his lap gently. A moment of pure fear passed through him. What if Jacked died here? What if Mark had killed him? Mark wrenched his phone from his pocket to dial 911 and only when he saw droplets fall onto the screen did he realize that he was crying for the third time that day. He punched in the numbers and had his thumb hovering over the send button when he felt a weak hand squeeze his thigh.

Mark’s heart soared. He dropped his phone and carefully slid his hand on top of his friend’s. Jackson was looking up at him expectantly, both affection and worry shining in his eyes, and he cautiously slipped his fingers between Mark’s own.

The urge to run away bubbled up within Mark. After what he’d just done to this boy, how could he look at him that way? Why was there no anger, no suspicion, no fear? Mark deserved none of this kindness Jackson was showing him and he felt awful for receiving it. Jackson should hate him.

“Good morning,” Jackson drawled in a tired voice. “Are you feeling alright now?”

Mark found himself laughing despite the situation, which only made his tears fall harder. Some landed on Jackson’s cheeks, and Mark instinctively reached a hand out to brush them away before he caught himself and pulled back. “You idiot,” the vampire choked out. “You should be worrying about yourself.”

Jackson smiled mischievously. “You’re right. You tried to kill me, you fucking asshole.” When he saw Mark’s expression darken with guilt, Jackson dropped the sarcasm and playfully pinched Mark’s side to make him squeal. “I wasn’t worried. I know you’d never hurt me. A little warning would’ve been nice, but I’m fine. Just a little weak, but I’ve donated blood so it’s not anything that I haven’t felt before.”

Mark knew that he should feel relieved. Jackson was taking this surprisingly well. Much better than Mark himself had taken it. But instead he just wanted to scream at Jackson, make him realize that he was wrong. Mark had definitely taken a lot more blood than a simple blood donation, for one. And it wasn’t true either that Mark would never hurt him–he just had, and he’d barely been able to stop himself from doing something much worse.

The human slowly reached a hand up Mark’s chest and rested it flat against his heart. A few silent seconds passed as Jackson felt the nothingness. A wide array of expressions flickered across the boy’s face: wonder, concern, shock, sadness. Fear. For a fleeting second, Mark allowed himself to think maybe he shouldn’t live forever if even the one he loved most had reason to fear him. Maybe it would be better for the world if he just ceased to exist.

“I have no idea how hard this is for you or how dangerous,” Jackson whispered, startling Mark. The fear was obvious in his voice, in the way he tried to mask the shakiness of it. Maybe he was scared for Mark and not of Mark, but the vampire wasn’t feeling optimistic and was too afraid of the answer to ask. “But no matter what,” Jackson continued in his most serious tone, placing emphasis on his next words as if they were the most important things he’d ever said, _“you have to keep surviving.”_

Mark recoiled like he’d been struck. It was almost like he’d known what Mark had been thinking and wanted to make it clear that under no circumstances was the vampire allowed to end his undead life, not even to protect the innocent. And just like that, Mark made up his mind.

It wasn’t that he’d just be living for Jackson. He’d find a way to live for himself. Maybe it would even be fun to travel to an undiscovered place with people that might just be new friends. And it would be the next best way to keep from hurting people aside from ending his life, which, if Mark was being honest, he wasn’t too keen on even if he’d thought it was the right thing to do.

Sure he’d have no Jackson this way which would be a devastating blow, but this was the best solution he had. He couldn’t put Jackson in any more danger, nor could he ask him to uproot his life for him no matter how romantic it sounded. The others had made it clear that staying wasn’t a safe option for them, and Mark was now realizing that it wasn’t a safe option for any of the humans in his life either. So this was the best Mark could do: running away, learning to control his urges so that he wasn’t a threat to anyone anymore, and starting a whole new eternity so much different than anything he’d ever known. And he’d learn to enjoy his new life goddammit. Jackson would want him to. His parents would want him to. And Mark also wanted to.

The vampire found himself grinning even as his sobs became uncontrollable. Jackson somehow had a way of always making Mark appreciate his true worth, but he also had a way of completely destroying Mark like nobody else ever could. This goodbye was too painful and way too final. His chest stung with each heave, and his whole body shook with the force of his sorrow. Yet at the same time, Mark could feel hope for the future rising up from the depths of his soul, and the conflicting emotions were twisting up inside of him and making him feel sick.

“I promise,” Mark choked out after a long moment where the only sound was his sniffling. “I promise that I’ll survive.”

Jackson grabbed one of Mark’s hands in his, lifting it up to his face and lightly kissing Mark’s knuckles. “That’s all I ask.”

“Hey, Jackson,” Mark said, sounding miserable. “You know I’d miss you, right? If I ever had to leave you, I’d miss you.”

There was pressure on Mark’s hand, Jackson squeezing tighter than he’d probably intended. “What are you talking about?!” He’d never sounded so distressed, his raspy voice coming out shrill and a bit too loud.

“I’ll miss you,” Mark repeated. “I’ll miss you.”

Mark placed a hand on either side of Jackson’s face, taking a deep breath out of habit before looking into his best friend’s eyes. They were wide and imploring as Jackson desperately whispered, “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, _don’t._ I _need_ you.”

 _Not if you don’t even know that I exist,_ Mark thought bitterly. Jackson was crying too now, and in any other situation Mark would’ve hurried to comfort him. But there was no point now. It would all be over soon.

“Starting now, you’re going to forget everything about me,” Mark said much more firmly and forcefully than he’d thought possible. He could feel power in his voice; the air was practically thrumming with the energy in his words. Mark hoped that meant this was working. “Forget all of our memories. As far as you’re concerned, I never existed.”

Horror appeared fleetingly in Jackson’s expression, and then it shifted to... nothing. After a moment, he looked up at Mark in confusion.

“Are you okay? Why are you crying?” Jackson asked. Then he seemed to realize the position that he was in and sat bolt upright, clutching at his head as he did so. “Why was I in your lap? And where am I? And why the hell do I feel like death?” He laughed a bit uncomfortably as he played with the hem of his shirt. “Sorry for so many questions.”

Mark tried to shove down his tears as Jackson prattled on. “You fainted, so I tried to help you.”

Jackson looked grateful for a moment until his gaze focused on the stains in Mark’s clothing. “Holy _shit._ Is that your blood or mine?” His hand flew to his neck, feeling the open wounds. He looked on the verge of a mental breakdown.

“Do you know me?” Mark asked before Jackson could freak out too much.

The human tilted his head quizzically. “Never seen you before in my life.”

It hurt more than Mark had imagined, like he’d been stabbed in the chest all over again or maybe even cut in half this time, but he masked the heartbreak with a tiny smile. He couldn’t let his emotions get the best of him.

He looked into Jackson’s eyes once more, his voice surprisingly steady as he laid out clear instructions with his new powers. “I’m going to call an Uber to take you home. Once you get there, look through your contacts and text Mark that you’re safe. Then delete the contact and erase all of your text messages with him. After that, clean yourself up and go to bed.”

The vampire paused in contemplation. He was tempted to let Jackson keep just this one memory of Mark—a random stranger who’d saved him when he fainted on a playground. But maybe that was too selfish. If he was going to do this, he should do it right. A clean break with not a single piece of Mark left behind.

“When you wake up, the only thing you’ll remember about today is that you got home from South Korea and you rested,” Mark added with finality.

Jackson nodded robotically at the words, confirmation that in the morning Mark would completely disappear from his thoughts forever.

Luckily there was an Uber driver ten minutes away, but the wait had been the longest ten minutes of Mark’s life. Jackson had tried twice to strike up a friendly conversation, but Mark pointedly ignored him and an awkward silence fell over the pair. It was the first time they’d ever felt uncomfortable with each other. Mark didn’t know what to say to this new version of Jackson that didn’t know him, wasn’t even sure if he could still consider this boy _Jackson._ Experiences are an important part of personality, so who knew if he even remotely resembled the person Mark knew?

Finally Mark’s phone rang out, breaking the tension; it was the Uber driver confirming that she was at the pick-up location. If she’d heard how badly Mark’s voice was breaking on his words, she didn’t say anything. She did, however, let out an ear-piercing scream that was pure agony to Mark’s sensitive ears once she saw the state that he and Jackson were in. The vampire had to order her to ignore the blood and forget everything that she’d seen.

Mark closed his eyes as the shimmery golden car disappeared around the bend, taking the most important part of his old life with it. He didn’t open his eyes again until Jackson was gone.

“Goodbye,” Mark whispered to an empty playground.

For a while Mark just stared at the deserted streets. His tears had long since dried. Now he just felt numb.

After what seemed an eternity, he opened up the messenger app on his iPhone. There was one unread message from Jaebum:

 

> I’m sorry about everything. You probably need some time alone. Give one of us a call when you’re feeling up to it so we know that you’re okay. We can wait at least a few days to make concrete plans, so try not to feel pressured.
> 
>  

Mark found himself smiling gratefully. Those three friends were definitely weird, but they weren’t as bad as they seemed. They meant well even if they weren’t always great at showing it, and they clearly understood how unstable Mark’s mind was at the moment. The vampire scrolled through his contacts to give Jaebum a call, but he changed his mind at the last second and wound up dialing Jinyoung instead. He couldn’t explain why he felt a strange sort of kinship with Jinyoung but calling him felt right even though the other two were probably wiser choices.

Jinyoung didn’t pick up on the first ring, but he didn’t take too long to answer either. “Feeling any better?” he asked cheekily instead of saying hello.

“Worse,” Mark groaned. “But I guess better in a way too.”

Jinyoung laughed good-naturedly. “Emotions are complicated. Want me to come meet you somewhere? I don’t have to tell the others if you don’t want me to.”

Mark was taken aback, his mouth slightly parted in surprise. Jinyoung didn’t sound the least bit angry or annoyed at Mark for running away or for instigating a fight between him and his friends. All Mark could hear was sympathy and kind-hearted concern. The redhead was shocked too at Jinyoung’s willingness to drop everything to help him, even offering to keep a secret for him. He had a hunch that, although the others would’ve likely offered the same help, only Jinyoung would have offered the secrecy. Mark was glad that he called.

“Give me a second and I'll text you my location,” Mark said by way of answering, already in the process of sending it through his maps app. “You said we could erase everyone’s memories, right? How long will that take?”

“Depends on how many people you know, Jinyoung answered warily. Conscious of Mark’s inner turmoil, he didn't push the subject any further.

“Bring the others,” Mark said as confidently as he could muster. “We can leave whenever that's done.”

There was a long pause on the other line, and for a second Mark thought maybe Jinyoung had hung up. But then Jinyoung’s voice came through again, cautious and concerned. “Are you okay?”

The words were touching and unexpected, but Mark had cried far too much today to let tears fall again. Instead he just smiled gratefully, heart soaring as he thought of all of the possibilities that came with a future spent alongside such a caring and quirky group of friends.

He was reminded of what Jackson had told him earlier: he had to keep surviving. Maybe with these new friends, Mark would be able to do more than just survive. He'd be able to truly _live,_ even without the love of his life to be his backbone. If Mark was being honest with himself, he had never fully known what it was like to be his own person. He used his anxiety as a crutch and depended on Jackson far too often. It hadn't been a healthy way to live. Maybe learning to stand on his own two feet would be a good experience for him. And maybe he'd never fall in love again—or at least not in quite the same way that he had with Jackson—but there was more to life than just romantic love, and thinking about his soon-to-be roommates made Mark suddenly thrilled to find out what else was to enjoy.

“I'm not okay,” Mark answered honestly, “but I will be.”

Jinyoung let out a sigh of relief. “That's great to hear. By the way, where are we going?”

“It's a playground near my house, I sent you the–”

“No, no, I got your text,” Jinyoung cut in. “I didn't mean it like that, I meant where are we running off to once we get rid of everyone's memories? Another state? Another country?”

“What? You're asking _me?”_ Mark spluttered. There was no way he'd heard that correctly.

“Of course,” Jinyoung said with slight confusion, like it should've been obvious. There was a hint of a smile in his voice as he continued. “The rest of us have been all over the world already. It's only fair that you're the one who gets to pick.”

Mark kept finding himself floored by the consideration of his new friends. Those idiots were already so good at tugging on his heartstrings. He hadn't expected to get even a say in where they were going, and a whirlwind of options was now running around in his head. His first instinct was Taiwan, because thanks to his parents’ stories it was the closest to feeling like home other than California. His next idea was London because he'd get to speak English there and everybody had cool accents.

Then the answer struck him like lightning in a storm. He thought about weekends spent huddled up on his bed studying Korean with Jackson after his best friend had declared that one day he'd be a dancer in South Korea. He thought too about the gorgeous views he'd seen in Jackson’s pictures and all the exciting stories the dancer had from studying abroad.

“Let's go to Seoul,” Mark decided.

“Seoul, huh?” Jinyoung hummed appreciatively. “I guess we could all use a bit of Seoul searching.” Jinyoung laughed aloud at his own pun while Mark just rolled his eyes. Jinyoung cleared his throat before continuing, sounding nostalgic. “South Korea. Looks like Jaebum and I are going home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So funny story, this chapter and the last chapter used to be the same chapter, but thank god I split them up because otherwise it would've been over 30 pages for just one chapter. This chapter alone took me a ridiculous amount of time to write and edit because it's huge—it's over 7.6k words. Oops.
> 
> Hope you all were happy with that little kiss scene because this story is slow build af so you probably won't get another one for a while lol. And fun fact, when I originally came up with this story a long time ago I'd always planned on Jackson freaking the fuck out when he got bitten, but as I was writing it that just didn't seem right, so here we are.
> 
> Thank you for reading and I'll see you next update! Until then, feel free to reach me on social media or leave me comments here because I love them.
> 
> –Amy Reese
> 
> Find me on social media:  
> Instagram: @vampycat.cos  
> Twitter: @darling_hyunjin


	4. Happy Vampire Birthday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guys it's finally here. I rewrote so many parts of this chapter so many times. I don't know why I was struggling so much with this chapter, but I think I'm finally satisfied with it. Sorry for taking so long. Tell me what you guys think!  
> \---  
> 

_ Two years later _

Mark woke up to the rattling of his doorknob and groaned.  He could hear the soft giggling from outside the wooden door, the slow creak that signaled someone trespassing into his bedroom.  He’d expected some sort of surprise from his friends just as they had done last year, but he couldn’t help hoping they’d somehow forgotten what day it was.  He’d been praying that somehow he’d be able to skip his classes that day without anybody questioning him, that nobody would complain or be concerned if he just stayed under the safety of his comforter all day.  But that was just wishful thinking.  Of course they’d remember, and of course they’d have no way of knowing that Mark would really just prefer to be alone on this specific day.

They never knew the full extent of what had happened on this day two years ago.  Jinyoung had picked Mark up from a playground in California in the middle of the night, and he’d never asked any questions.  None of the three had ever asked questions actually, even though he was sure they wanted to know what had changed his mind so resolutely in such a short period of time.  They were probably waiting until Mark was ready.  He wasn’t ready to talk then, and he still wasn’t now.

So they didn’t know that Mark almost killed the love of his life two years ago today.  They didn’t even know that Mark had been in love for most of his life, that he was still in love now with somebody who couldn’t remember him anymore.  Because Mark couldn’t talk about it, didn’t want to think about it.  But he thought about it a lot anyways.

Jinyoung poked his head in the room though the crack in the doorway and grinned when he saw that Mark was awake.  Mark shook away his dark thoughts, blinking his bleary eyes back up at the intruder.  Jinyoung threw the wooden door open with a dramatic bang, strolling into Mark’s room with all the excitement of a kid on Christmas.  He was followed by the equally thrilled Jaebum and BamBam, the latter of which held something large and glowing.  Mark had to squint at it a moment before his vision adjusted to the brightness well enough to make out what it was–a round cake heaped with chocolate frosting, miniature flames burning at the tops of two protruding candles.

Jinyoung counted to three with a wide grin on his face, and then Mark’s friends began a very offkey rendition of the English version of Happy Birthday.  Mark forced on his best fake smile, the one he always plastered on anytime his anxiety started to eat away at him from the inside out.  Jackson had always been able to see through that smile.

“You bought me a cake?” Mark asked with a chuckle once they’d finished their song.  He hoped that he sounded convincingly upbeat.  “I can’t even eat cake.”

BamBam winked playfully.  “No, but I can.  And you can blow out the candles.”  

Mark raised an eyebrow in question.  “Are you really going to eat that whole cake by yourself?”

The witch mock gasped, holding a hand over his heart as though he were offended.  “You don’t think I can?  It’s only been two years, did you already forget how good chocolate cake tastes?”

Mark felt his smile droop.  “It wasn’t as good as blood.”

“Well anyways, challenge accepted,” BamBam said, his words rushing out in an attempt to quickly change the subject.  He knew that he’d struck a nerve.  “I’ll have that cake gone before the week is over.  But first you have to make a wish.”

The witch extended his hands toward Mark, holding the cake right in front of his friend’s face.  From that close, Mark could now read the icing on top of the cake: “Happy Vampire Birthday” in fancy red script along with a cute little drawing of a pair of fangs.  Mark could only imagine what the cake decorator had thought of the request.

“Adorable,” Mark said sarcastically, but he could feel the corner of his mouth twitch up just a bit.

BamBam bounced up and down on the balls of his feet, the cake wobbling and threatening to fall right into Mark’s lap.  Mark was unnecessarily nervous about something as trivial as a birthday wish, especially when it wasn’t even his real birthday, but narrowing all his hopes and fears into one singular wish was weighing heavily down on his shoulders.

“Go ahead, make a wish!” BamBam said encouragingly when Mark didn’t seem to be showing any signs of action.

Mark closed his eyes, and as the darkness washed over him one distinct thought swam its way to the surface.   _ I wish this emptiness inside would go away. _

He almost felt bad for admitting that he felt so empty.  It seemed like such an insult to his friends who treated him so well and worked so hard to make sure that he was happy.  But Mark just couldn’t shake that feeling, that hole inside of himself that he wasn’t sure could ever be filled.

When Mark opened his eyes again, the bright lights danced in front of him.  He took a deep breath in, and as he exhaled he imagined that he was blowing away all of his troubles.  His eyes followed the trails of smoke curling up toward the ceiling from the now snuffed-out candles, and his chest felt just a bit lighter.

BamBam carefully placed the cake on Mark’s nightstand before leaping onto the bed beside Mark, tucking his chin into the crook of his friend’s neck and throwing an arm around him.  “I hope you get everything you wished for and more.”

The sweet moment was interrupted by Jinyoung suddenly throwing his weight on top of them.  Mark groaned as Jinyoung’s knee connected sharply with his gut, and BamBam beside him was screeching nonsense about being severely wounded.

Jinyoung just laughed and pinched Mark’s cheeks, and when Mark looked up he saw Jinyoung’s catlike eyes gazing at him intently.  He looked so serious for a moment, but he quickly replaced it with a more cheerful expression.

“I can’t believe my cute little son is already two years old,” Jinyoung cooed sweetly.  “It seems like just yesterday that I brought you into this world.”

“You didn’t bring me into the world, you killed me,” Mark deadpanned.

“It seems like just yesterday that I brought you into this world,” Jinyoung repeated, reaching up to ruffle Mark’s freshly-dyed platinum blonde hair.

“You’re so annoying,” BamBam grumbled, throwing his fist hard against Jinyoung’s back which sent the vampire crashing into Mark’s chest.

“Hey, watch out, you’re gonna suffocate me,” Mark grumbled as he squirmed to try and escape from underneath Jinyoung.

“Suffocate?  You don’t even  _ need  _ to breathe anymore, you just do it out of habit,” BamBam said indignantly, voice muffled from under Jinyoung’s arm.  “I’m the one you should be worried about, I could legitimately die from lack of oxygen.”

“You’re so  _ dramatic,”  _ Jinyoung whined, “if you were really worried about suffocating, you could just do a spell to hold your breath.”

Jaebum chuckled softly from where he stood watching them and came over to sit on the edge of the bed.  “Come on, let’s give the birthday boy some space,” he said gently as he pried Jinyoung and BamBam off of Mark.

The two boys begrudgingly untangled themselves from the pile of limbs and moved to sit cross-legged on the bed across from the birthday boy.  Jaebum used the opportunity to place a strong hand Mark’s shoulder, a fond look in his eyes.  “I know we’ve put you through a hell of a lot,” Jaebum began, “and I know that you never wanted this life for yourself.  But you truly deserve happiness, and the three of us will do everything in our power to try and make that happen for you.  Okay, Mark?  You can count on us.”

“Thanks, you guys,” Mark said with sincerity, hot tears prickling at the back of his eyes.  He choked them down.  He was so sick of crying so goddamn often, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to do it just minutes after waking up.  “Thank you so much.”

Mark could feel his mood shifting just slightly thanks to his friends’ support, his smile coming through just a bit more real.  Maybe he was getting closer to the happiness he was searching for, and maybe this day wouldn’t be as bad as Mark imagined.  It had been two years since he’d lost Jackson, and even with the anniversary bringing back memories he’d rather not think about, he had to keep going.  And today that meant not skipping class.

But, as fate would have it, he probably would have been better off staying home after all.

Mark’s good mood actually lasted much longer than he had expected it to at least.  Jinyoung seemed to sense that something was off about him, so the whole bus ride to campus he was being as goofy as possible to make Mark laugh.  And it was working.  Mark was laughing a lot already, and his brain stopped trying to drag him down with thoughts of Jackson.  Even though it was only the beginning of the day, Mark was feeling much more optimistic about his second vampire anniversary than the first one.

Last year on Mark’s very first “vampire birthday” he’d been completely miserable.  He didn’t have any classes that day and had been planning on hibernating in his bed until the next day came, but he couldn’t think of any good excuses to stay home in bed without giving away what was bothering him.  So instead he’d been dragged to a club by his friends to celebrate the occasion, where he’d gotten so drunk on blood that he ended up passed out on the floor–thank  _ god  _ his friends had been careful to make sure that he didn’t seriously hurt someone and that none of the humans remembered anything later, because he’d needed the buzz and alcohol didn’t work on him anymore.  Only blood could get him drunk enough to forget.

Right after the move to South Korea had been the worst, not counting the sudden spike in past memories brought about by his one year vampire anniversary.  Everything had been so clear in Mark’s mind.  He had barely been able to close his eyes without seeing Jackson’s face, and his dreams were filled with nothing but Jackson.  Sometimes the dreams took him back to a time when he and Jackson were still best friends, playing video games side-by-side on Jackson’s bed with no idea that vampires or witches actually existed.  Sometimes the dreams were steamy, and Mark would wake up hard and incredibly embarrassed.  And sometimes they were nightmares where Mark sucked all the blood from Jackson’s body until he was limp and lifeless in Mark’s arms.  Those nights Mark always woke up screaming.  He dreamed in the daytime too, imagining what it would be like if Jackson had moved with him or recalling a particularly fond memory from their time together.  The dreams and daydreams gradually lessened over time, then shot back up in frequency for a short time during and after his vampire anniversary, and after that they slowly dwindled down to almost nothing.

Now, only two years later, Mark no longer needed blood to forget.  He couldn’t even remember the sound of Jackson’s voice anymore. He was forgetting all on his own, and secretly Mark hated it.  He didn’t want to heal, even knowing that it was better for him in the end.  He didn’t want to be happy without Jackson, but he could slowly feel it happening.  He was starting to feel happy again.  Two years had changed Mark so drastically.  Maybe in 100 years the only thing he’d have left of Jackson was a name in the back of his mind, a gentle ache in the dark recesses of his heart, and an ancient metal bracelet.

He knew deep down that he was truly moving on.  Even on the second anniversary of the day he’d left Jackson, he was genuinely smiling and laughing courtesy of his friends.  He’d even contemplated leaving the metal moon bracelet he’d gotten as a gift from Jackson at home, but at the last second he’d gone back for it.  Mark Tuan’s life had somehow been unpaused without him even realizing it.  He was moving forward.  And maybe sometime soon that horrific empty feeling would be gone just like he’d wished on those candles.

That thought, along with Jinyoung’s arm slung across his shoulder, kept Mark going as he shuffled into his Korean literature class and tucked himself into his desk in the middle of the back row.  They still had ten minutes until the class started, but Jinyoung was filling up the space with steady chatter.  Jinyoung could be surprisingly perceptive, so Mark figured that the mindless small talk and funny stories were his way of making sure that Mark had something to focus on, just as Jinyoung’s insistence on going to college with Mark had been his way of making sure that Mark was okay.  Even not knowing what this day meant to Mark, Jinyoung seemed to have picked up on the fact that it wasn’t the happy occasion it was supposed to be, and Mark would forever be grateful for his best friend’s ability to read his mood so easily.

Halfway through Jinyoung’s impassioned retelling of the time he and BamBam had taught girl group dances to a group of monks, the professor walked in and cleared his throat to make an announcement.  There were still at least five minutes until class, but apparently whatever he had to say was important.

“We’re getting a new student today,” Professor Park said kindly.  “Looks like he’s not here yet, but since he missed the first two weeks of classes please do your best to help him out if you can.”

“What kind of idiot misses the first two weeks of classes,” Jinyoung whispered with a snort.

Just then a boy in a backwards snapback burst dramatically through the door, and Mark would’ve cheekily replied  _ that kind of idiot  _ if the words hadn’t turned to ash in his mouth when he caught a good look at the boy’s face.  Professor Park beckoned the boy toward the front of the room, and Mark’s eyes followed his every movement with rapt attention.   _ No, no, this cannot be happening. _

“Class, this is the new student that I was telling you about,” Professor Park explained, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder.  “Go ahead and introduce yourself.”

But Mark didn’t need the introduction.  Those almond-shaped eyes and eyebags that never went away, that wide nose and sharp jawline that made him look so manly, the thick muscles that completely filled out his school uniform, the confident way that he held himself–Mark already  _ knew  _ all of that.  But it couldn’t be real.

“Hello, class,” came the gravelly voice, and oh yeah,  _ that  _ was what it sounded like.  “My name is Jackson Wang.  I just moved here from America.  I look forward to getting to know you.”

And there was that trademark Jackson Wang smirk followed by a polite bow.

Mark was frozen.  Why was he here?   _ How  _ was he here?  He looked  _ good  _ too, and Mark wasn’t prepared for the painful clench of his heart.  Jackson seemed mostly the same as Mark remembered, except his hair was now dyed a chocolate brown instead of the blonde that Mark was used to.  And now Mark was the blonde one, because he’d had a mental breakdown a few weeks after moving and thought maybe changing his look would change his mindset.  The red hair reminded him too much of old Mark, and he couldn’t be the old Mark anymore.  And maybe blonde was the old Jackson.  Mark wondered how much of this new Jackson he would recognize, or if a Jackson Wang without any memories of Mark Tuan was a completely different person altogether.

Mark sighed, and when Jackson’s gaze turned toward him his eyes immediately darted to the tile floor.  Of course, there shouldn’t have been much reason to avoid Jackson.  It’s not like the other boy would have any idea who he was.  They weren’t best friends anymore.  They weren’t  _ anything  _ anymore.  Yet Mark couldn’t keep his mind from diving backward into buried memories.  The late nights on the elementary school playground with their backs against the blacktop, scanning the stars for constellations that only Mark knew the names of.  The movie marathons cuddled under a fluffy blanket, eating slightly-burnt microwave popcorn and laughing until their sides hurt.  Staring too long at Jackson’s lips as he told animated stories, wondering how Jackson would react if Mark just leaned forward and cut off his words with a kiss.

The metal moon bracelet was cold against Mark’s pale skin, and he spun it around his wrist absentmindedly.  It used to be a gesture that gave him comfort.  Now it was just a leftover habit of a part of his life that had died years ago, one that reminded him all too much of what he had lost.  And yet he had never been able to make himself take it off.  He’d tried two or three times, and once he’d even lasted most of the day.  But his wrist had felt too empty without that cool touch of metal, and he’d relapsed as soon as he got home from campus.  The bracelet reminded him too much of Jackson was the problem.  It was one of the last few things keeping him from a clean slate, especially now that Mark was already forgetting so much on his own.  If he took off that bracelet, he was afraid Jackson would just be  _ gone. _

But that was silly to even think, because Jackson had forgotten everything between them.  He was already gone.  Mark was the only one still grasping for tiny threads, still holding on to a scuffed-up metal friendship bracelet that used to mean something but now had no matching pair.

The thought drew Mark’s eyes to Jackson’s wrist as if to confirm what he knew to be true, but he let out a gasp that drew a confused stare from Jinyoung at his side.  Mark was wrong.  The sun bracelet that existed as the perfect counterpart to Mark’s moon bracelet was there right on Jackson’s wrist just as it had always been for so many years past.  It should’ve been ditched in the bottom of the overflowing drawer that housed all of the junk that Jackson didn’t know what to do with but couldn’t throw away, or maybe it should’ve been actually thrown away, or re-gifted.

But Jackson was wearing it.  And Mark didn’t want to believe that it meant something—but maybe, just maybe, it did.

“Hey, he’s kinda cute, don’t you think?” Jinyoung asked, leaning in close to Mark’s side.  But Mark was staring straight ahead, mouth slightly agape, fists clenched tightly at his sides.

Jinyoung’s sly smile melted away as he looked at Mark with concern.  “Hey, Mark, are you okay?”

Mark stood so abruptly that his chair clattered to the ground behind him.  The entire class turned their eyes sharply toward him, and a girl a couple rows up nearly jumped out of her seat at the sudden crash.  Mark was running to the door before he even realized what he was doing, knocking into the sides of desks and tripping over his own feet as he rushed to get out of there as quickly as he could without using his super speed.  He heard Jinyoung’s voice calling out his name, and Professor Park asked where he was going as the door swung shut behind him.  He was sure if he looked back he’d see Jackson staring at him like he was just some really bizarre stranger.  But Mark didn’t look back.  He just ran.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SO GOT7 IS TOURING!!!! I'm so excited! Let me know if I'll be seeing any of you at the Toronto show :)  
> Monsta X is touring too, and they're my bias group, so I'm just gonna be poor I guess. Especially since I just saw Day6 and Astro too. Oh well.  
> \---  
> Find me on social media:  
> Instagram: @vampycat.cos  
> Twitter: @darling_hyunjin


	5. Beautiful Places

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow, sorry that it's been so long since I've updated. I'm trying to get myself on a regular schedule, so let's see how that goes.
> 
> I haven't even updated since the GOT7 concert. Let me tell you, being in the pit for that show was an absolutely mind-blowing experience. I have actual footage of BamBam shaking my hand from the stage. I miss them so much. Also, I'm seeing Day6 in Toronto next month if anybody else is going :)
> 
> I might combine the first two chapters into one chapter by the way, so don't be alarmed if a chapter seems to disappear.
> 
> Anyways, enjoy the chapter! We have some Mark and Jackson interaction finally! Yay!

Mark was always running, it seemed.  Running from Jackson. Running from his problems.  The only time he’d run  _ toward  _ something was to help someone he'd heard screaming in a forest two years ago, and that had quite literally resulted in his death.  So yeah, running away suited him a lot better it seemed. 

And sure, the whole running thing probably stemmed from his anxiety, and maybe he should be looking for a way to fix it or something, but fuck if he really cared right now after every ridiculous thing that had happened to him up to this point.  For now he was content to just keep falling back on that same damn unhealthy coping mechanism and avoid his feelings whenever they became an issue.

That was why instead of suffering though biology class with his ex-best-friend who had no memory of him anymore, Mark found himself sitting on a swing at a park playground, absentmindedly kicking at the woodchips below his feet as he swayed gently back and forth in the light breeze.  God, Mark must’ve done something pretty awful in his past to be caught up in this teen romance movie from hell that was playing out in his real life. And he’d been so close to moving on and achieving some semblance of normality again, only for everything to go spinning out of control for the second goddamn time.  It was too much, and Mark wasn’t sure if he could keep picking up the pieces if it would just keep falling apart again anyways.

Mark spun his metal bracelet around his wrist and closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the chain of the swing.  Jackson had looked different—and he looked good. His muscles were more defined than the last time Mark had seen him, his hair dyed chestnut brown, and it seemed like he’d gotten a little taller too.  But there was so much that was familiar too. That cheeky grin, the confident way he held himself, that goddamn metal sun bracelet that shouldn’t have held any significance to him anymore but for some reason he still wore.

Mark had been  _ so close  _ to just burying everything for good and pretending that Jackson Wang was just some wonderful extended dream.  But now here he was at the worst possible time, and all those memories and feelings were rushing to the surface in vivid color.  His heart felt like it would burst with the force it. The past wasn’t supposed to come back like this. It should’ve stayed back in America where Mark had tried to leave it.  Jackson shouldn’t be here, he shouldn’t  _ be here,  _ why was he here,  _ why— _

A sharp pain bloomed in Mark’s palm, and he let out a gasp of pain.  He hadn’t even realized he’d been clenching his fist, but when he uncurled his shaky fingers, blood poured down his hand from four angry crescent-shaped cuts.  The vampire watched as the wounds slowly shrank and sealed themselves over until the only evidence of injury was the blood still trickling down his arm. Mark leaned over and scrubbed it off as best he could in the wood chips, but the drying blood under his fingernails still betrayed his monstrous little secret.

He ran a thumb over the smooth flesh of his palm.  Just like new. Mark would never get used to this, to the sickening drop of his stomach every time he was reminded that his humanity was gone forever.

“A playground?  How predictable,” came Jinyoung’s teasing voice from right beside Mark.

Mark jumped out of his skin, hands flying upward in a defensive position.  “God, I almost punched you,” he groaned.

Jinyoung plopped down on the swing next to Mark, laughing gently.  “Did I scare you? Aren’t you supposed to be a big bad creature of the night?”

Mark pouted and turned his head away.  “Does it look like nighttime to you?”

“No, but without BamBam’s sunstones we’d be flaying alive in the sun,” Jinyoung deadpans.  “So my comment still stands.”

Mark held his left hand out above him, spreading his fingers and admiring the way the sunstone in his ring glittered in the daylight.  It was just an orange rock with little flecks of white, but that simple rock held the key to his daywalking abilities thanks to the spell that BamBam put on it.  If that ring were to leave his finger while he was under the sunlight, he’d burn up to a crisp. 

“Have you ever thought about taking your ring off?” Mark asked quietly after a long moment of quiet contemplation, fidgeting at the seriousness of his question and pointedly avoiding Jinyoung’s gaze.

Jinyoung sighed and gave Mark a knowing look, reaching over to slide a comforting hand onto Mark’s knee and squeezing gently.  “Before I became a vampire,” he began, piecing his words together carefully, “I thought about death a lot. My life was… not exactly glamorous.  I wanted everything to end. Becoming a vampire helped me find my reason to go on living. I’d imagine for you it’s quite the opposite, right?”

Mark turned finally to look at Jinyoung, and the love and concern in his friend’s face crashed into him like a tidal wave.  Mark only nodded. Jinyoung had always been able to read Mark so well—almost as well as Jackson had. 

Except Mark  _ really _ shouldn’t be thinking about that right now.

“I know it’s not easy at first—it’s a lot to adjust to, and you lost so much right from the start,” Jinyoung continued.  “And I don’t want to sound super cliche, but it really does get better. I know loss, and I promise you that you will come back from this.”

It was strange hearing Jinyoung talk so openly like this, and Mark realized with a start that he really didn’t know anything about the lives of his three friends before he’d known them.  And as alarming as it was to hear about Jinyoung’s dismal human life and his experience with loss, it should’ve been obvious that a centuries-old vampire had seen shit that Mark could never even imagine.  Yet these past two years, Mark had been so focused on his own grief that he hadn’t even thought to ask them about the hundreds of years they’d lived before him.

Mark fiddled with one of the rips in his jeans, winding a loose string around his finger.  “You never talk about your past,” he mumbled, but of course Jinyoung heard him. Jinyoung was always listening.

“It’s not really worth talking about,” Jinyoung admitted.  “I don’t really like to dwell on the past, especially one as dark as mine—not while I have so much good going for me in the present.”  He paused, crossing his legs and hooking his knitted fingers around a knee. His eyes seem to lose focus for a moment, lost in something that neither of them could see.  “And besides, that story just makes people sad. Or makes them pity me. Usually both, and neither is what I want.”

“I want to hear it,” Mark said with sincerity.  “As long as you’re okay with telling me. I want to know what you’ve been through.”

“Well, let’s just say that the Joseon dynasty isn’t as magical as Korean dramas make it out to be,” he said bitterly.  “My whole family was forced into servitude after my father failed to pay his debts, so I spent most of my human life as a household servant to a rich family.  My mother died in childbirth when she had me. My father blamed me for it. I don’t think he even looked at me once while he was alive. My sister was the only person I had growing up.  And when our house burned down, I lost her too.”

Jinyoung kept his expression neutral, but there was a slight quiver in his voice.  Even after hundreds of years, the pain of such a striking loss had clung onto him like a staticky blanket and refused to be fully shaken off.  Mark wanted to reach out and hug him, but Jinyoung had long passed the need for comforting. Time had healed everything that could be healed—the painful fragments still remaining were permanent.

“I’m so sorry,” Mark whispered softly.  “I’m not pitying you, but I’m sorry that it happened to you.”

“It’s okay, Mark, it’s been centuries,” Jinyoung answered with a breathy attempt at a laugh that only seemed half genuine.  “It’s not like I’m crying over it anymore. But losing my sister was the toughest thing I’ve ever had to go through. It’s a miracle I even survived.  After she was gone, I ran. And I was starving to death all alone on the streets for a while. There were a lot of mysterious murders at the time, and everyone said it was a monster.  Some days I secretly wished I’d be the next victim. But I held on. And I guess the monster did find me and kill me eventually, but not quite in the way that I expected.”

Jinyoung laughed for real this time, happiness showing through in his voice for the first time since he’d started his story.  One corner of his lips quirked up in a nostalgic smile, and Mark was pretty sure he could guess the reason for it.

“So Jaebum found you and saved you?” Mark asked in awe, eyes sparkling.

And then Jinyoung scoffed, rolling his eyes.  “Not exactly. Stop reading fairy tales, Mark Tuan.  Life isn’t that convenient. He kidnapped me.”

Mark nearly choked.  “He  _ what?”   _ It was hard to imagine Jaebum kidnapping anyone.  Sure, he was a little mischievous sometimes, but he was one of the most fiercely kind people that Mark knew.

“Man, the look on your face is priceless,” Jinyoung chucked, reaching over to poke at Mark’s cheeks.  “Three hundred years is a long time. If you saw us back then, you wouldn’t even recognize us. I was miserable, and Jaebum hated humanity more than anything.  We both did a lot of growing, fell in love somewhere along the way. So I guess you could say that we saved each other. Eventually we made the whole eternity commitment thing, so I guess we got that fairy tale ending in a weird sort of way.  But it’s kind of a fucked up fairy tale. And we’re still on the run from the hunters, so there’s always the chance that things could go south.”

“Hey, don’t say that,” Mark huffed, kicking up wood chips as he stomped his foot.  “You two have been through so much together, you’ll make it through this too. I’m sure you’ve seen a lot worse than some hunters, yet here you still are.”

Jinyoung let out a nervous huff and slumped against the chain of the swing.  “Maybe you’re right. Sorry, I’ve never been much of an optimist. But I’ll tell you this much—I  _ will  _ protect Jaebum, no matter the cost.”

And that was all it took to make Mark see red.  “Park Jinyoung, don’t you fucking dare imply that you’re going to sacrifice yourself for anyone,” he growled.  “We’re all here to protect each other, okay? We’re in this together. Ohana and all that.”

Jinyoung wrinkled his nose.  “Ohana?”

“Have you seriously never seen Lilo and Stitch?” Mark asked incredulously.

Jinyoung shook his head.  “I’ve been around since before cinema was even invented.  There are a  _ lot  _ of movies that I’ve missed.”   
  
Mark clicked his tongue in mock disappointment.  “One of these days we need to have a Disney movie marathon.  It’s essential to this friendship.”

“Imagine three vampires and a witch cuddled up on the couch, singing along to Tangled,” Jinyoung mused with a hint of a smile.

And finally Mark was laughing, deep and loud, the kind that shakes your whole body and steals your breath from your lungs.  Jinyoung joined in, both vampires clutching at the chains of the swings for support as they gasped for air. And it probably wasn’t even that funny of a joke, but they both needed this.  They needed each other. No matter how cliche it sounded, friendship was the most powerful light in dark times.

When the laughter settled down, the pair drifted into a companionable silence.  Jinyoung pushed off from the ground and began to swing, pumping his legs with fervor, raising himself higher and higher into the morning air.  He looked like he was ready to take flight, soaring off into a bright blue sky that was full of possibility. The quiet stretched out around them, punctuated only by the creaking of Jinyoung’s swing and the occasional trills of songbirds.  It was all so peaceful, so beautiful—Mark felt like he was intruding, like a monster with a fucked-up life shouldn’t be allowed in beautiful spaces like this. 

“You can tell me whenever you’re ready,” Jinyoung murmured after a long stretch of silence, finally digging his feet into the ground with a spray of wood chips and skidding to a halt.  “Your friend from your human life. His name was Jackson, wasn’t it? And the new kid, that was his name too. You looked like you’d seen a ghost.”

“It was him,” Mark breathed, chest seizing with the effort of those words.  It was like if he’d never said them aloud, maybe somehow they wouldn’t be true.  Mark would walk into their next class and Jackson would have never been there at all, and Mark would realize that he’d made the whole thing up.  But the words were out there now. And Jackson was out there too. “He’s here.”

“You never did tell me what happened that night two years ago,” Jinyoung began hesitantly, voice gentle as if speaking to a skittish animal that might flee at any moment.  “You were so set on staying in America to the point that you ran away. Then suddenly I get a call to meet you at some playground and you’re ready to leave as soon as possible.  And when we went around erasing you from everyone’s memories, you told us that your friend was already taken care of.”

Mark clenched his hands into fists.  Screw Jinyoung and his perfect memory.  Jinyoung never let anything slip—he was always paying attention, filing everything away into the back of his mind and using his intuition to fill in what was missing.  But at least it saved Mark from having to explain every last gory detail.

“I know that these may be painful memories for you,” Jinyoung continued softly, “and if you want to keep them to yourself then I fully respect that.  But since this is coming back to haunt us in a very real way, it might just be the right time to talk about it.”

So Mark told him everything.  

He told him how Jackson was his childhood friend, his only friend really.  

How he’d been in love with Jackson for nearly his whole life but always thought that it was painfully one-sided.  

How he’d found out that it wasn’t one-sided at all when Jackson had come back from studying abroad and confessed his feelings.  

How Jackson had kissed Mark like he was starving, held him like he was he’d disappear.  

How Mark had been waiting forever for that confession, but he’d gotten it far too late for it to matter anymore.

How Mark’s already paper-thin self-control had snapped, how he’d nearly killed the most important person of his life and drank live blood for the first and only time.

How Mark really did disappear after that, erased all traces of himself from Jackson’s life and fled to the other side of the country.

How Jackson had showed up without warning two years later and Mark had no fucking idea what to do anymore, because he’d thought that he was finally on the right track to move on and now everything was crashing back down again.

A quiet moment passed as Jinyoung absorbed the information.  Then he began to speak, picking out each word with the utmost care.  “BamBam might be better at explaining this whole witchy ‘order-of-the-universe’ thing, but—how do I put this?  There are certain forces in the world that are attracted to each other. Sometimes those forces are people. And if you and Jackson are two of those forces, then every fiber of your beings are drawn to each other.  Think of it as like… the magical version of fate. Two opposing forces that always find their way back to each other.”

Mark’s mouth was a desert, his tongue dry and heavy in his mouth.  He cleared his throat before speaking in a disbelieving voice. “You think Jackson and I are  _ fated  _ to be together?  Even after I tried to kill him.”

Jinyoung shrugged his shoulders.  “I mean, it would explain how he showed up on the other side of the world one day, exactly where you happened to move, and just so happened to end up in your class at school too.  It’s not up to me to question the order of the universe. If you two were made to be together, if that’s what the world wants… then there really isn’t much point in fighting it. It’s like two magnets.  No matter how far you run, the universe is just gonna keep pulling you back together.”

Mark opened and closed his mouth a few times, but the words just seemed stuck.  His mind was reeling. All he’d wanted was to keep Jackson safe. He’d dropped _everything,_ dropped his _entire fucking life_ in a heartbeat to achieve that goal.  And apparently it hadn’t even mattered in the first place, because Jackson would just keep _finding_ him.  The cold feeling of helplessness settled over Mark.  Finally he croaked out in a broken voice, “So what should I do?”

Jinyoung sighed, kicking absentmindedly at the woodchips beneath his feet.  When he met Mark’s gaze, there was sincerity in his eyes, and his voice was filled with conviction. “There are a few options that you could go with.”  He held up one finger. “One, we could all uproot our new lives and move across the world again. If my theory is correct, you’d get maybe another few years before you and Jackson find your way to each other again.  And we could always just deal with that when it came to it, maybe run away again if you really wanted to. He’s only human, so eventually we’d outrun his lifespan.” 

Mark wanted to put his hands over his ears, block out the thought that one day Jackson would die and Mark would still be here, just as young as he was today.  But the truth was too important to keep ignoring, no matter how startling. So Mark listened.

Jinyoung put up a second finger.  “Two, you just ignore him. You wouldn’t have to worry about him accidentally following you around the world, and something as simple as keeping your distance might still be enough to keep him safe.  It might suck to see him around and not do anything about it, but it’s not a bad middle ground solution. Or, you could go with option three.” 

Jinyoung fished out a wrinkled slip of paper from the front pocket of his jeans and held it out in front of Mark’s nose, waving it around like it was the world’s greatest treasure.  “I don't think I even need to give you this since you probably already have it memorized. But this is option three.”

With trembling fingers, Mark plucked the paper from Jinyoung’s grip.  He had a strange feeling that whatever was written on it had the ability to completely alter the course of his life, to tempt him into choosing a different path.  If his heart was still beating, he knew it would’ve been thudding rapidly against his chest. Instead, everything was eerily still, time itself seeming to halt around them.  Mark closed his eyes in a moment of reverent silence, and when he managed to calm himself down enough to open them back up, he was met with a string of numbers that he instantly recognized.  He sucked in a sharp breath of air and opened his hands in shock, letting the breeze sweep the paper away and carry it off into the horizon.

But it didn’t matter.  Jinyoung was right. Mark already had Jackson’s phone number memorized.

“Option three means not being a coward,” Jinyoung said firmly.  Mark tensed at the accusation, but Jinyoung continued without acknowledging his friend’s discomfort.  “I know that may sound harsh, but it’s something that I think you need to hear. This all started with you panicking and taking the easy way out.  You could’ve faced it, told Jackson the truth about your new life and figured out where your relationship would go from there. But you ran, and you never gave Jackson a choice in the situation.  You just took his memories and left. And now here we are.”

“But I-”  Mark floundered to find the right words.  His immediate reaction was to defend himself, but there was nothing that he could say.  Jinyoung was right. He was always right. So Mark redirected his train of thought to something less painful to think about.  “Why did you even have that? I can’t just text him out of the blue without looking like a stalker.”

“I mean, technically he’s the stalker since he came all the way to Korea for you,” Jinyoung joked.  “But there’s actually a perfectly natural reason for it. Before I followed you out of the classroom, I stopped to tell Professor Park that you had been feeling sick.  He wanted me to ask if you’d be willing to catch Jackson up on what he missed the first two weeks since you’re at the top of the class. I guess he had permission from Jackson to pass that number along.  So option three means you accept whatever the hell the universe thinks is worth it between the two of you. And that starts with tutoring him. Yeah, he’d be in danger if you went for it, and you can’t get his memories back for as long as he’s human.  But if I’m being honest, maybe Jackson would rather have a dangerous life at your side than a safe life without you. It’s not like you actually asked him.”

Jinyoung finally got up from the swing to stand in front of Mark, leaning down and resting his hands on Mark’s shoulders.  “And we can protect him. We’re family, remember? We protect each other. And if Jackson is important to you, then that makes him family too.”  Jinyoung gave Mark’s shoulders an encouraging squeeze. “Look, I don’t think staying away from each other is what either of you really want. Aren’t you tired of running, Mark Tuan?”

And he  _ was  _ tired.  So, so tired.  But how could he just back out now after he’d run so far to make sure that Jackson Wang never had to get involved with monsters?  After he’d stolen Jackson’s memories and even stolen his choice in the matter? And with those memories gone, it wasn’t like Jackson would know any different if Mark just left him alone.

But—

But what if what Jinyoung said was really true?  Then the universe would just keep finding ways to push them together, right?  Maybe there really was something special about him and Jackson, something that whatever ridiculous magical force it was that kept the world in motion had deemed worthy.  

Admittedly, Mark knew that he screwed up.  He took something from Jackson that he could never give back.  And the last words Jackson had said before Mark had completely rewritten his life still circled in the back of his mind, pitifully playing over and over like a mantra.   _ I need you.   _ Fuck, Jackson had literally begged Mark not to do it and he still did.  For his  _ safety.   _ But he’d been selfish and afraid.  He’d made the decision by himself—and maybe it had been the wrong one.

Jinyoung took his hands away from Mark’s shoulders, and Mark nearly whined at the loss of platonic comfort.  Jinyoung offered him a gentle smile before taking a couple steps back. “I’ll leave you to think all that through.”

Mark blinked, and Jinyoung was gone.  The blonde vampire stared down at his empty hands like they held all the answers in the world.  But honestly, Mark wasn’t even sure if he knew what the questions were anymore. The birds were still chirping happily around him, the sky cloudless and cotton candy blue.  Hope hung heavy in the air, so tangible that he could almost reach out and grab it. He  _ wanted  _ to grab it.

Could he really let Jackson back into his life?

Mark pushed off from the ground, pumping his feet as the swing cut high through the air.  The wind whooshed past him, fast and free, a cold bite against his skin. He felt alive again.  It really did feel like flying.

Maybe it had been wrong to think that Mark couldn’t belong in beautiful places.  Maybe he hadn’t completely fucked everything up yet, maybe it wasn’t too late. Maybe this, world, this life, was still his for the taking.  Maybe, maybe, maybe—

all he had to do was make the leap.

Mark launched himself from the swing, body arching cleanly and gracefully through the air, a weightless moment of freefall.  He landed neatly on his feet, and  _ god,  _ being a vampire had really done wonders for his balance.

His iPhone was in his hand before he even realized what he was doing, fingers flitting across the screen on autopilot.  Mark sucked in a quick, fearful breath as he hastily tapped send before he had the chance to second guess. Trepidation set in almost immediately as the message stared mockingly back at him, unable to be taken back:

 

**Mark**

Hello, this is Mark Tuan.  Professor Park asked me to tutor you?  Let me know if you want to set something up soon.

 

Mark read it over again and again, words swimming together until they seemed like nothing but a jumbled mess of meaningless symbols.  The fear within him was unexpectedly fading away, and a sort of nervous exhilaration rose up to take its place as three dots started dancing up and down on the screen to signify Jackson’s impending reply.

 

**Jackson**

thanks!  i hope you arent sick anymore it seemed pretty bad from the way you ran out.  im free most days, i dont have a ton of friends in korea yet haha

 

And before Mark’s brain could fully process the response, another message came in immediately after.  The corner of Mark’s mouth twitched up. At least Jackson was still the king of double texting.

 

**Jackson**

figures you speak english with a name like mark

 

Oh, shit.  Oops. Mark hadn’t thought at all about the language, and while he’d been using almost solely Korean for the past two years, English was his mind’s natural reaction to speaking with Jackson.  Oh well, too late now.

 

**Mark**

I’m actually feeling a lot better, thanks for asking.  I think it was food poisoning. And I can use Korean if you prefer, I just thought it might be more comfortable for you to talk in English since you said you were from the States.

 

**Jackson**

cute AND considerate?  wow i got really lucky with this whole tutoring thing lol

sorry if that was awkward i have literally no filter

im glad youre okay now though

and both are good, im fluent in both, my korean is a little rusty though lol

havent really used it since i studied abroad 2 years ago

 

Fuck.  Now Mark was blushing like an idiot, his cheeks burning hot to the touch.  Jackson had always been jokingly flirty and complimentary with Mark while they were friends, but now knowing that there was actual attraction behind his words painted the situation in a completely different color.  How the hell was Mark supposed to respond? Was he supposed to flirt back?

 

**Mark**

Haha thanks :)

Nope.  He couldn’t do it.  He wasn’t prepared for flirting just yet.

 

**Mark**

And I’m sure that your Korean is fine.

 

**Jackson**

i dunno man you havent heard it yet, i might try to say something nice and end up calling you like a pineapple shark or something you never know

 

**Mark**

Feel free to call me a pineapple shark whenever you want to honestly.  I’ve been called much worse.

 

**Jackson**

damn youre really gonna hit me with sympathy right now huh

i dont know what people have called you but if they do it again they might somehow mysteriously wind up with a broken nose haha

 

**Mark**

You say haha but you don’t sound like you’re joking.

 

**Jackson**

;)

 

**Mark**

No.

 

**Jackson**

you cant stop me

but hey

to get back to the point of this whole texty thing

when do you want to study

after our next class?

 

And there it was.  The opportunity. Mark stared for a full minute before typing out his words.  He was really doing this. 

 

**Mark**

Sounds good!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I ended up writing a prequel about Jinyoung and Jaebum's backstory, would you guys want to read it?
> 
> Next chapter promises even more interaction between Mark and Jackson, and either next chapter or the chapter after that we might finally see one of the other GOT7 members who haven't shown up yet ;)
> 
> Thank you for reading! See you guys next chapter!
> 
> -Amy Reese
> 
> Find me on social media:  
> Instagram: @vampycat.cos  
> Twitter: @darling_hyunjin


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